Professor Gavin Bridge g.j.bridge@durham.ac.uk
Professor
The map is not the territory: A sympathetic critique of energy research’s spatial turn
Bridge, G.
Authors
Abstract
Energy research in the social sciences has embarked on a ‘spatial adventure’ (Castán Broto and Baker, 2017). Those setting out on this journey have started from different disciplinary and theoretical locations, yet a “map” of sorts has begun to emerge. Made up of epistemological positions, conceptual vantage points and lines of enquiry, this map demarcates and structures the growing field of energy geography providing a more-or-less agreed guide to the territory. In the paper's first half I reflect on the scope and significance of the spatial turn in energy research. I describe the map now guiding much spatial research on energy, identifying core ideas around which spatially-sensitive social science energy research has come to cohere, notwithstanding its heterogeneity and internal diversity. I offer a supportive reading. In the second half, I offer a more critical reading of the adventure so far, arguing that it is unnecessarily limited in its reading of space. The full potential of a spatial perspective for social science research on energy has yet to be realised. I outline three pathways for realising some of this potential – geographies of knowledge production, differentiation and disassembly – and show how each takes energy research's spatial adventure in new directions.
Citation
Bridge, G. (2018). The map is not the territory: A sympathetic critique of energy research’s spatial turn. Energy Research and Social Science, 36, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.033
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 22, 2017 |
Online Publication Date | Oct 16, 2017 |
Publication Date | Feb 1, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Nov 29, 2018 |
Publicly Available Date | Dec 11, 2018 |
Journal | Energy Research and Social Science |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 36 |
Pages | 11-20 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.033 |
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Copyright Statement
© 2017 This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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