Shifting Narratives of Electricity and Energy in Periods of Transition

Abstract

This special issue aims at providing nuanced and multi-layered understandings of historical choices regarding, and perceptions of, electric supply and electrical technologies, by taking into consideration diverse groups, actors, agencies, and communities in distinct historical and regional settings. It also aims at rethinking energy systems, practices, and transitions through questions of gender, religion, race, design and architecture, material culture, colonialism, nationalism(s), and varied interpretations of tradition and modernity. It insists on reorienting our gaze from centring on electricity to examining electricity within existing energy regimes and sources, to historicise and problematise the place of electricity, electric supply and use within complex conceptions of energy transitions, thereby challenging linear narratives of progress and modernisation.