Matching Items (2)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: energy
Description
This dissertation explores the functional purpose of imagination as it is enacted in the context of shaping large transitions in sociotechnical systems. Large sociotechnical systems undergoing profound transitions embody instantiations where societies experience profound changes in the ‘rules of the game’ that underpin the conduct of daily life. The forms of imagination that guide these transformations, known in the political theory literature as ‘imaginaries,’ play a profound yet undertheorized role in transition of sociotechnical systems from one configuration to another. Expanding on this relationship, the study draws on three case studies of energy systems change in the United States during 20th and 21st century. Each case study explores unique element of how actors at a variety of levels – transnational governance, regional electrification, and in-home energy marketing – define and the possibilities for ideal human and technological action and interaction through a transition. These actors defining the parameters of a new form of systems operation and configuration are as equally focused on defining how these new configurations shape fundamental ideas that underpin American democratic sensibility. Moreover, in the process of articulating a new configuration of energy and society – be that in terms of managing global resource flows or the automation of energy use in a residential home – questions of what makes an ideal member of a society are interlinked with new contractual relationships between energy producers and energy users. Transitions research could and should pay greater attention to the normative commitments emergent systems actors – as it is in these commitments we can chart pathways to redefine the parameters that underpin emergent transitions.
ContributorsTidwell, Abraham (Author) / Miller, Clark (Thesis advisor) / Adamson, Joni (Committee member) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Smith, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
There is a lack of prior research about factors and conditions relating to the underdevelopment of infrastructure on Navajo Nation, especially from a community-centered perspective. As a Diné researcher, the intersection created via the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), American Indian Studies (AIS), and Diné Studies creates a means by which developmental policy and futures planning can be discussed. Through qualitative inquiry, specifically cross-case analysis, oral histories, and archival review from a Diné perspective, this work establishes the relationship between roads, energy, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the Navajo Nation in relation to the historical underdevelopment of infrastructure on the reservation, especially from 2000 to 2020. Roads and energy infrastructures make way for ICT deployments, and together, these three infrastructures shape futures planning for the Nation, including governance decisions relating to partnerships, and internal versus external development. Relationships between infrastructural efforts, past colonial practices of the United States (U.S.), and relations between the U.S. and tribes during this era shape the development of relevant expertise within Navajo Nation entities and also impact access to and uses of significant funding opportunities available via the early 21st century American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A Diné-centered concept of care through long-term infrastructure deployment relates tribal sovereignty and Indigenous ways of knowing to Indigenous Science and Technology Studies (STS) and suggests new directions for applied Diné studies in the field of Indigenous STS.
ContributorsGeorge, Alaina Sarah (Author) / Duarte, Marisa E (Thesis advisor) / Richter, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023