Simone Abram

This article examines the practices associated with technical solutions to energy transitions. In particular, it considers the role of ‘problem solving’ as a partial view on the world with extraordinary influence. As the core epistemological practice of engineers, problem solving starts with selective framings of problems in which social or political conditions are taken as given. Engineering, as a form of applied science, therefore offers ethical choices that may be eclipsed by technical framings. This article highlights the reflexive practices of engineers engaged in modelling practices for energy transitions, who are addressing socio-technical problems in formally constrained ways that both enable and limit the thinkability of different future horizons.

‘Kinning and De-kinning’ introduces a special issue that considers how houses, heirlooms and other owned items reproduce kinship and family in diverse societies. It revisits death and inheritance in kinship studies, with a focus on processes of ‘passing on’ and the materiality of things as well as bodies. Incorporating temporalities and materialities in the changing expression of deeply felt emotions that extend between people and between people and things, we echo classic concerns in kinship studies around the incorporation of strangers via affinity, while mobilising the notion of house societies, bringing classic anthropological insight on intergenerational transfer of wealth to bear on questions of identity and belonging. Showing how processes of kinning are always selective and negotiated, the articles in this special issue argue that they also carry with them the potential for kinning's shadow: just as property can enable kin relations to be re/produced, they can also be used to release people from kinship through what we term ‘de-kinning’: instances of failed appropriation and disrupted kin relations. The article outlines an approach to kinship that takes seriously the enduring qualities of material and property, while maintaining the argument that kinship is achieved (or negated) through the active performance of acknowledged relations. Résumé: « Faire et défaire la parenté » introduit un numéro spécial qui porte sur la manière dont les maisons, les héritages et autres objets reproduisent la parenté et la famille dans diverses sociétés. Ce volume entend revisiter les dimensions de la mort et de l'héritage dans les études de parenté en portant une attention particulière aux donations et à la matérialité des choses et des corps. Notre perspective prend en compte les temporalités et matérialités incorporées dans l'expression changeante des émotions qui passent entre les personnes, et entre les personnes et les choses. Nous faisons ainsi écho à l'intérêt classique de l'anthropologie de la parenté pour l'incorporation des étrangers via l'affinité – notamment autour de la notion de société-Maisons – et sur transfert intergénérationnel de richesse en le faisant porter sur des questions d'appartenance et d'identité. En montrant que les processus de parenté sont toujours sélectifs et négociés, cet ensemble d'articles défend l'idée que ces processus portent aussi en eux l'inverse de ce qu'on pense qu'ils font : de même que la propriété permet aux relations de parenté de se re/produire, elle peut aussi être utilisée pour faire sortir les gens de la parenté à travers ce que l'on désigne comme « dé-parenter » (de-kinning) : par des instances d'appropriation ratée ou des relations de parenté auxquelles il est mis fin. Cet article délimite une approche de la parenté qui prend au sérieux les qualités de longévité du matériel et de la propriété, tout en maintenant l'argument que la parenté est réalisée (ou négociée) à travers la performance active de relations reconnues.

In this article we explore the inheritance of hytte, or secondary homes, in Norway. Inspired by the notion of ‘kinning’, we extend the notion of kinning to include various materialities and temporalities. In particular, we trace the passing on of the hytte ethnographically as a stretched moment, and argue that temporality adds another layer to the understanding of the hytte as a participant in kinning. Our material indicates a number of connections between the hytte as a property to be passed on and the family/kin as a reproducing unit, connections that unfold over time, decades, a lifetime or more. Through this approach, it is possible to trace processes of kinning, but also what we call ‘de-kinning’, involving detachment, refusals and rejection. The article shows that a focus on materials and built structures adds to the understanding of kinship in contemporary societies. Résumé: Dans cet article, on étudiera l'héritage de la hytte ou maison secondaire en Norvège. On étendra la notion de « parenté » à l'inclusion de différentes matérialités ou temporalités. En particulier, on retracera de manière ethnographique la transmission par donation d'une hytte sur une période étendue et l'on défendra l'idée que cette temporalité longue ajoute une couche supplémentaire à la hytte comme participant pleinement au faire-parent. Notre matériel permet de souligner un certain nombre de connexions entre la hytte comme propriété à transmettre et la famille / parenté comme unité de reproduction. Ces connexions se déploient sur le temps long, des décennies et parfois des vies ou plus. Par cette approche, il est possible de retracer les processus de parenté, mais aussi de « de-parentage » impliquant détachement, refus et rejets. L'article montre qu'une attention au matériel et aux structures construites permet de comprendre la parenté dans les sociétés contemporaines.

The current moment is often described as a global energy crisis, as conflicting needs and desires, resources and degradations emerge. Among the professions concerned with seeking a resolution for the crisis are a cadre of engineers and mathematicians who seek to tame multidimensional uncertainties over time. By ‘building’ elaborate and integrated models of energy systems, they hope to provide a framework to help others to take decisions about the future. But ‘building a model’ and integrating diverse models is an extreme shorthand for many and diverse ways of imagining, calculating, reasoning, and defining certainties and uncertainties. What do they mean when they talk about ‘models’, how do they imagine and what kinds of future do they describe? And what kinds of decisions do they anticipate being necessary? These questions raise fundamental questions about temporality and the emergence of new technologies. This chapter discusses how a cadre of engineers and mathematicians are attempting to generate a holistic model of contemporary and future energy systems, through imaginings of current and hypothetical infrastructures.

The evolution of computer tools has had profound impacts on many aspects of control rooms and control room studies. In this paper, we discuss some key assumptions underpinning these studies based on a new case of the electricity distribution control rooms, where the reliability of the electricity infrastructure is managed by a combination of planning and real-time maintenance. Some of these practices have changed remarkably little over the past decades – partially because they have been considered to have been ‘digitalized’ since the 1950s and have continued to amass digital solutions from different periods. Hence, the gradual transformation of control room work demands nuanced attention, both conceptual and empirical. To outline a framework for this work, we provide a conceptualization of organizational routines, habits, and reflectivity and synthesize existing CSCW and control room literature. We then present an empirical study that demonstrates our concepts and shows how they can be applied to study cooperative work. By addressing these aims the paper complements, and advances, the important topics recognized in this special theme issue and hence develops new research openings in CSCW. We address the necessity to avoid implicit determinism when analyzing new digital support tools and suggest focusing on how working habits mediate social changes, distribution, and decentralization in representing the power distribution in control rooms.

Transition to a post-carbon economy implies changes that are both far-reaching and unprecedented. The notion that a decarbonization transition must encompass multiple forms of justice is gaining ground. In response, the concept of Just Transition has become ever more popular – and confusion about its meaning ever greater. We argue in this paper that the term Just Transition needs a rigorous updating to develop its full conceptual power for the analysis and evaluation of the rapid and extensive energy transitions already underway. After reviewing the different uses of Just Transition in practice and scholarship, we propose that the term be used as an analytical concept for an ongoing process of transition. The Just Transition concept can provide an integrated, whole-system perspective on justice (procedural, distributive, recognition, and restorative) that can help in identifying systemic solutions to address environmental and socio-economic concerns. This would differ from reductionist approaches that derive from legacy silo-sectoral or technologically driven approaches; these too often overlook negative side-effects and wider justice implications of reorganizing economic practice. An examination of COVID-19 pandemic responses illustrates our operationalization of the Just Transition concept, highlighting the importance of designing whole-system policies that are equitable, as well as the pitfalls of pursuing a narrow sectoral approach. Taking seriously the implications of complex systems with hard-to-predict effects also has concrete implications for policy interventions at all levels of governance. In particular, we highlight the importance of attending to multiple social inequalities for ensuring the resilience of whole-system decarbonization in the face of instability, unpredictability, and unprecedented change. Key policy insights

Social Anthropology has a long and familiar history in the UK, but what is the state of play today? This essay reflects from the perspective of the chair of the ASA on two years of pandemic upheaval and a crisis of funding and working conditions, institutional challenges and responses from social anthropology.

This article adopts frameworks and methods from Science and Technology Studies for examining Energy Systems Integration (ESI). ESI, the integrated operation and planning of multiple energy supplies and demands, can contribute to improvements in energy reliability, security and flexibility, and therefore facilitate a transition to a low carbon economy. The article examines UK research towards integrated computer models of energy system ‘vectors’. The research is based on fieldwork and participation in a large ESI research project in the UK, drawing on interviews, workshops and observations. We highlight three main contributions to the studies on ESI and STS research of modelling. First, ESI researchers are aware of the social, economic and political context of their work, though many of these contexts are difficult to incorporate in any useful modelling process. Second, issues that touch on both science and policy around energy systems were the motivation for ESI researchers yet were also underemphasised in project work. Third, we develop unique mixed ethnographic methods to study ESI and that enable researchers to build relations of trust with research participants that contribute to the discussion of sensitive topics such as the politics and ethics of energy modelling approaches.

When considering ethnicity and identity, one cannot avoid considering history as a significant process of expression and identification. If we are to consider how identities and ethnicities are revealed, expressed or exploited through tourism, then the presentation or negation of history must be foremost in our analyses. Taking Davis’s definition of history as ‘thought about the past’ (1992: 14), we can ask how these thoughts are articulated, and how ‘people are seen to interpret and use their particular history in the present’ (Collard 1989: 92). Thus, pasts lived through or imagined (see Zonabend 1984) are reinterpreted in the present, and can be thought to reflect present understandings, as well as aspirations for the future.