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Larry Reynolds

Researcher
Freie Universität Berlin
Cities, Citizens and Pathways to Energy Transition in Germany
01 October 2015 - 31 May 2016
Sociology
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Larry Reynolds is a sociologist trained in “Science and Technology Studies” in the UK. He held an Einstein Foundation fellowship at the Free University in Berlin. At the IEA de Paris, he takes part in the “Energy transition & Social science and humanities” program supported by EDF, and leads a comparative European study about energy transition. His research combines scholarly originality with public significance.

Research interests

Energy Transition; Sociology of Governance & economic adaptations; Civil society participation.

Key publications

The Post-Political and the End of Nature: The Case of Agricultural Biotechnology, (co-auth.), in The Post-Political and its Discontents, Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
The Contested Publics of the UK GM Controversy: A Tale of Entanglement and Purification, Science as Culture, 2013.
Neoliberalism and technology: perpetual innovation or perpetual crisis? (co-auth.), in Neoliberalism and Technoscience: Critical Assessments, Ashgate, 2012.
Contested agro-technological futures: the GMO and the construction of European space, (co-auth.) in The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology Vol. 9, Springer, 2012.

The case study of citizen energy in Germany will begin with an examination of the specific policy and political economic context for the emergence of this technoeconomic formation. This will draw on existing studies of the role of federal states, cities and rural and urban community groups in the energiewende. A key aim of this literature review, in regard to cross national comparisons with the UK, is to examine the limits and barriers to the simple translation or transplant of German models of citizen energy to other parts of the EU such as the UK. This enables an examination of how the ambiguities of ‘citizen energy’ are interpreted and differently imagined in different national and regional context. Within Germany alone, different sociotechnical imaginaries of citizen energy can be identified, with rural and urban divergences and different models of ownership. Finally, given the more advanced state of the citizen energy regime there, the German case is of European significance. It provides a testing ground for the problems that might be generated for the incumbent energy regime, and for controversies around possible negative sociotechncial dynamics of the emergent one. Thus how transitions to distributed ‘citizen energy’ regimes may be imagined and enacted elsewhere in the EU will be to some extent shaped by outcomes in Germany.

Workshop organized by L. Reynolds (Paris IAS), sponsored by EDF R&D
23 May 2016 09:00 -
23 May 2016 17:15,
Paris :
Energy Transitions in Europe: The role of cities, regions and territories
Conférence de Larry Reynolds résident de l’IEA de Paris, programme Transition énergétique
27 Oct 2015 14:00 -
27 Oct 2015 00:00,
Paris :
The Emergence of a Municipal Energy Sector in the UK – Developments, Rationales and Tensions
Workshop organized by Larry Reynolds (Paris IAS), sponsored by EDF R&D
2024
2015-2016
Contemporary period (1789-…)
Western Europe