The Engineering Approach and Social Aspects of Energy Use:Mind the Gap, but Can It Be Closed?

摘要

After a temporary decrease in the mid-eighties, energy consumption by households hasresumed its gradual increase over the recent years. In current approaches of this problem, there isan unproductive gap between the engineering approach seeking technical innovations to saveenergy, and its critics pleading for social factors to be included in analyses of (over)consumptionby households. Within science and technology studies (STS), there is a growing awareness,supported by a growing body of theory, that the technological culture we live in can morefruitfully be understood using analytical approaches in which the technical and the social areintegrated. Especially on topics of design and use of technology, there has been considerableprogress in theoretical development and in development of tools for making technology that ismore socially informed. The paper explores the knowledge-landscape with respect to energy usein households with the aim of identifying promising areas for conceptually connecting thevarious disciplines, especially for linking relevant approaches within the social sciences on theone hand, and technical engineering on the other. On behalf of this linkage operation wecapitalise on the new insight STS offers. The hope is that we, progressing in this way, canovercome the unfruitful split and lay the ground for a new comprehensive paradigm.