Background
Globalisation has brought new uncertainties and insecurities that threaten citizens’ resilience, characterised by social scientists as ‘World Risk Society’. This is the social context –the ‘new normal of risk’ – within which industrial decarbonisation will have to be delivered, a situation magnified because most of the Industrial Clusters are in regions of the UK with pockets of severe social deprivation alongside the existing industry. Currently, there is no research on the social implications of regional industrial system decarbonisation framed in terms of these wider currents of risk society.
Associated Outputs
Prof Nick Pidgeon
Principal Investigator
Cardiff University
Project Team
Cardiff University:
Prof Karen Henwood
Dr Harriet Smith
Aim
This project offers an opportunity to understand the impacts on people of how south Wales will meet the challenges of decarbonising industry. Broadly our research aims are to understand how global uncertainties produce resistances to (or embrace of) key industrial decarbonisation pathways. We are interested in understanding peoples’ aspirations to live secure and sustainable lives alongside ongoing industrial change, and in ways that embrace a dynamic, temporal perspective. We are developing a framework to attend to aspects of everyday life impacted by uncertainties and experienced through affective intensities.
Meet the Team
Karen Henwood
Prof Karen Henwood
Cardiff University
Harriet Smith
Dr Harriet Smith
Cardiff University
Karen Henwood
Prof Karen Henwood
Cardiff University
Harriet Smith
Dr Harriet Smith
Cardiff University
Case Study
Investigate Further
Pidgeon, N., Groves, C., Cherry ,C., Thomas, G., Shirani, F., Henwood, K. 2021 A little self-sufficient town close to the beach: local energy system transformation through the lens of place and public things. Webb, J., Wade, F., Tingey, M., eds. Research Handbook on Energy and Society, Edward Elgar, pp. 299-316
Cherry, C., Thomas, G., Groves, C., Shirani, F., Roberts, E., Henwood, K.,Pidgeon, N., 2022. A personas-based approach to deliberating local decarbonisation scenarios: Findings and methodological insights. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 87. In press.
