1. DR CHRISTOPHER GROVES, DR FIONA
SHIRANI, PROF. KAREN HENWOOD, PROF.
NICK PIDGEON
UNDERSTANDING RISK GROUP & SCHOOL OF SOCIAL
SCIENCES, CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
HTTP://CARDIFF.ACADEMIA.EDU/CHRISTOPHERGROVES
WHY ENERGY MATTERS:
ENERGY BIOGRAPHIES
AND EVERYDAY ETHICS

2. THREE FRAMEWORKS ON
ENERGY AND BEHAVIOUR
• Information on
energy costs
leads to
reduced
energy use
Rational
choice
• Shared
practices
constrain
possibilities for
choice
Practice
theory
• ‘Everyday ethics’
influence which
practices adopted
and how
Everyday
ethics

3. ‘ORDINARY ETHICS’
‘Ethnographers commonly find
that the people they encounter are
trying to do what they consider
right or good, are being evaluated
according to criteria of what is
right and good, or are in some
debate about what constitutes the
human good. Yet anthropological
theory tends to overlook all this in
favour of analyses that emphasize
structure, power, and interest.’
Michael Lambek (2010), Ordinary Ethics:
Anthropology, Language, and Action
• The ‘ethical register’
as immanent in
everyday practice
• Practices and beliefs
as expressive of
ideas of good and
right

4. ‘ORDINARY ETHICS’
SUBJECTIVE PREFERENCES
• ‘I think I feel like
x right now’
• ‘x is my
favourite, each
to their own’
• ‘I don’t know
why, I just like x’
THE ETHICAL REGISTER
• ‘Everybody needs
x’
• ‘Good lives are
ones with x in it.’
• ‘People usually
think x is the right
thing to do, but I
think one should
y, because…’

5. ORDINARY ETHICS AND PRACTICES
• Cultural meanings are elements
of practices that influence their
spread and longevity (Schatzki;
Shove, Pantzar & Watson)
• Example: showering and shared
expectations of cleanliness;
luxury
• But people are not just ‘carriers
of practices’
• They also have biographies:
how do lifecourse transitions
influence the ethical significance
attributed to practices?
Behaviour
change
Intransigence of
practices
Practice
theory
Influence of ethical
meanings on unpredictable
‘tinkering’ with practices

6. ENERGY BIOGRAPHIES PROJECT
(2011-2016)
QL biographical interviews
• Four sites: Cardiff (Ely,
Peterston), Lammas, Royal
Free Hospital (RFH, London)
• 3 longitudinal interviews
(original group of 74 in first
round narrowed down to 36 for
rounds 2 & 3)
• 6 months between interviews
• Multimedia component –
participant photographs

7. EXAMPLE: ‘LUCY’ (PETERSTON)
The wise household
manager…
“I don’t think I really feel
guilty I just think I’m aware
and it does make me cross
when like Sean [husband]
especially just is deliberately
almost you know wasting it
[…]”
‘I never really wanted to
waste money, energy but
now I think it’s just, when
I got my last energy bill, I
couldn't believe it.’
But living in a large,
hard to heat rural
house…

8. GOOD HOST, ‘GOOD WASTE’?
On patio heaters:
“[…] we do love our patio heater when it’s a sunny evening
but it gets a bit cold and dark and you can sit out and
they’re like probably the worst things aren’t they? […] we
were sitting out there one evening … it was like midnight
and you could have a drink outside still and it’s so lovely
here cos it’s so quiet and everything so but you wouldn’t
have been able to do it without that […]. we know it’s really
bad but we’re still going to use it.”
On hosting friends from
London:
“weekends we pretty
much always have
visitors […] so big
Saturday dinner and a
few bottles of wine and
big Sunday lunch and
stuff like that”
Reinstating wood fires:
“[…] we have a log fire and they’re probably
super inefficient aren’t they in heating a
room? […] we’ve put massive radiators in
our new house cos its really Victorian, tall
ceilings, and so we just don’t need a wood
burner to be on at any point but actually it’ll
sort of make the room […].”
Comparing with neighbours:
“[…] it’s fairly typical,
everyone’s got a couple of
cars, everyone’s got wood
burning stoves”

9. IN SUMMARY
• In Lucy’s case, energy use
increases because of
• material fabric of home
• but also because of ‘ordinary
ethical’ commitments
• Some commitments conflict
with others (i.e. to using less
energy)
• This points beyond practice
theory: what reasons do
people have for using energy
in particular ways?
• Do these create obstacles or
opportunities for promoting
demand reduction/practice
change?
Conflicting identities,
clashing ideas of how to
be good:
1. “I never really wanted
to waste money,
energy but now I think
it’s just, when I got my
last energy bill, I
couldn't believe it”
2. “we know it’s really bad
but we’re still going to
use it.”

10. THANKS FOR LISTENING
http://energybiographies.org
http://flexis.wales
http://understanding-risk.org
http://cardiff.academia.edu/christophergroves