Gordon Walker

The critique of the inanities and injustices of present society, however obvious they may be, is disqualified by a simple reminder that remaking society by design may only make it worse than it was.Alternative ends are invalidated on the strength of the proved ineffectuality of means" (Bauman 1991; 269) Green ( 2006) is not alone in contending that "environmental 'crises' require fundamental changes in the socio-technological structure of the way we live and work".For those concerned with sustainability, the idea of transition -of substantial change and movement from one state to another -has powerful normative attractions.If 'we' can steer change, shape future development and manage movement in desired directions, perhaps 'we' can make the environment a better and more sustainable place in which to live.But how so to do?In a manifestly complex world dominated by hegemonic ideologies of neoliberal capitalism, global finance and commodity flows is it really possible to intervene and deliberately shift technologies, practices and social arrangements -not to mention their systemic interaction and interdependencies -on to an altogether different, altogether more sustainable track?Across the board there is growing recognition of the holistic, unavoidably interrelated nature of contemporary environmental problems and of the need for fresh approaches and forms of governance capable of engaging with complex challenges of this kind.Theories and models of sustainable transition management (STM), derived from a blend of academic traditions in innovation, history and technology, appear to fit this bill and it is no wonder that they are now catching on across a number of policy domains.In the Netherlands, government sponsored programmes have explicitly adopted methods of 'transition management' (Kemp and Loorbach 2006) and in the UK, the policy relevance of similar theories and methods is being explored and actively promoted through projects and events like those supported by the ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme.Academically, and in just a few years, there has been rapid growth in the 'transition management' literature and in the appeal of approaches characterised by an alluring combination of agency, complexity, uncertainty and optimism.

In this article we conceptualise energy use from a capabilities perspective, informed by the work of Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and others following them. Building on this, we suggest a corresponding definition of energy poverty, as understood in the capabilities space. We argue that such an understanding provides a theoretically coherent means of comprehending the relationship between energy and wellbeing, and thus conceptualising energy deprivation, that makes sense across settings including both the global North and South: a coherence which has previously been lacking. At the same time, it has the flexibility to be deployed in a way that is sensitive to local contexts. Understanding energy use in the capabilities space also provides a means for identifying multiple sites of intervention, including some areas that are currently largely overlooked. We argue that this is advantageous for attempts to address energy poverty in the context of climate change and imperatives for the containment of aggregate energy consumption.

Energy has an ambivalent status in social theory, variously figuring as a driver or an outcome of social and institutional change, or as something that is woven into the fabric of society itself. In this article the authors consider the underlying models on which different approaches depend. One common strategy is to view energy as a resource base, the management and organization of which depends on various intersecting systems: political, economic and technological. This is not the only route to take. The authors develop an alternative approach, viewing energy supply and energy demand as part of the ongoing reproduction of bundles and complexes of social practice. In articulating and comparing these two positions they show how social-theoretical commitments influence the ways in which problems like those of reducing carbon emissions are framed and addressed. Whereas theories of practice highlight basic questions about what energy is for, these issues are routinely and perhaps necessarily obscured by those who see energy as an abstract resource that structures or that is structured by a range of interlocking social systems.