Rethinking citizen engagement for an inclusive energy transition
How to rethink citizen engagement?
The transition to sustainable energy will significantly impact societies and people's daily lives in the coming years. Collaboration between citizens and governments and strong citizen engagement are seen as crucial conditions to achieve this transition legitimately. However, despite years of experimentation, participatory processes still lead to mixed results and fall short in terms of inclusion. How can we better understand, rethink, and reshape citizen engagement for an inclusive energy transition.
The Urban Futures Studio conducts ongoing research on citizen engagement in sustainability transitions. More specifically, this research project focuses on how energy transition policies in urban neighbourhoods shape the interaction between citizens and governments and how this process affects the dynamics of citizen engagement and its level of inclusion. This way, we aim to better understand and explore how citizen engagement can be designed inclusively, incorporating the diversity of backgrounds and desires in society and contributing to developing shared images of sustainable future neighbourhoods.
Publications
Wat, Hoe en Wie? Vormgeven aan inclusieve ontmoetingen in de energietransitie (2020) Authors: Bronsvoort, I., Hoffman, J. & Hajer, M.
De kunst van het bijeenkomen - Hoe we vormgeven aan inclusieve ontmoetingen in de energietransitie By Irene Bronsvoort, Jesse Hoffman and Maarten Hajer
Aandacht voor de vormgeving van ontmoetingen, een interview met Irene Bronsvoort Kennisknooppunt participatie
Documentary ‘New Connections’
In many areas in the Netherlands, governments and other societal actors are working to accommodate the energy transition and engage citizens in energy policies. However, while policy plans are highly ambitious about creating 'co-benefit approaches' to the energy transition, especially in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods, we still know little about how this works out in practice and what the energy transition entails for citizens and their neighbourhoods. To further explore this, the Urban Futures Studio, with film producer Zouka, and in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, made the documentary' New Connections'. For this documentary, we followed energy transition policies from the 'drawing board' to their implementation in local practices in one particular neighbourhood, namely Bospolder-Tussendijken in Rotterdam.
Bospolder-Tussendijken has been assigned as a 'test bed' for the energy transition for a few years now. In the documentary' New Connections', we meet policymakers, practitioners, local entrepreneurs, and citizens involved in the energy transition in this neighbourhood. The story gives an insight into the daily endeavours of local initiatives to inclusively engage (other) citizens in the energy transition and their attempts to create co-benefits. It shows how citizens experience the energy transition and how it impacts the neighbourhood.
Online launch
On 17 October, the documentary' New Connections' was launched online during a screening with residents from Bospolder-Tussendijken and is now publicly available.
Do you want to screen 'New Connections' during a public event? Please get in touch with Irene Bronsvoort: i.bronsvoort@uu.nl
Trailer
We use the documentary as a conversation starter between policymakers, local initiatives, researchers, citizens, and others involved in energy transitions. The documentary's first screening took place in September 2021, during our premiere event in Bospolder-Tussendijken. Here, we used the documentary to start a discussion about what it takes to engage citizens in the energy transition in Bospolder-Tussendijken inclusively and how policymakers, local initiatives and practitioners can improve their collaboration to reach these goals. The viewing resulted in an engaging, open interaction about the need to revalue local initiatives, 'ethics of engagement', ownership and the role of policymakers in these matters.
Essay on designing inclusive interactions in the energy transition
In July 2020, we published our new essay 'What, How and Who? Designing inclusive interactions in the energy transition' (Bronsvoort, Hoffman and Hajer, 2020). In this essay, we argue that how the interactions between citizens and governments are shaped and enacted significantly influences who gets involved and to what extent people feel heard. To apply this approach to cases, we distinguish between three dimensions of interaction:
- What (the defined object or issue at hand)
- How (the setting and staging of the interaction)
- Who (the target groups and protagonists of the process)
Focusing on the issue of form, we argue that processes for interaction between citizens and governments should be designed in a more future-oriented way, organised over the long term, in closer proximity to citizens and with attention to the powerful role of 'in-betweeners' and 'in-between' places such as community houses, where people can meet to deliberate on the wide range of possible futures for their neighbourhood.
'Rethinking citizen engagement for an inclusive energy transition' is an ongoing project of the Urban Futures Studio. Interested to know more? Don't hesitate to get in touch with Irene Bronsvoort.