About the Energy & Society Network

The Energy and Society Network was created in 2010 by academics active in the European Sociological Association (ESA) Research Network 12 on Environment and Society and in the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee 24 on Environment and Society.

The network aims at bringing together researchers interested in social aspects of energy issues to provide them a platform for information exchange, discussion and development of collaborations across countries, including on international collaborative research projects in this field. The group has also been aiming at strengthening a network of those interested in extending familiar approaches to environmental sociology by forging links with other social science fields such as science and technology studies, the sociology of risk, material culture, innovation studies etc. as well as the natural and engineering sciences.

During the 10th Conference of the European Sociological Association in Geneva the group decided to organize its first meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Initially thought as a workshop, the event was very well received, and ended up gathering over 140 researchers from Europe and elsewhere. The first conference of the Energy and Society Network was hosted by the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon between March 22nd and 24th, 2012, as a Midterm Conference of the ESA RN12, in collaboration with ISA RC24. The conference included the first general meeting of the network and all participants in the conference were invited to become members. Further information about this conference, including short bios of all speakers, some presentations and the conference sum up, can be found at http://www.energyandsociety.ics.ul.pt/ . A selection of papers from the conference was published in a special issue of the journal Nature and Culture focused on “Energy cultures and practices”. More information can be found at http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/nc/ .

In Lisbon it was decided that this conference would be the first of a series of meetings held every two years between the ESA conferences.

The second conference was held in Krakow, Poland, between June 4th and 6th, 2014. The Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University was commissioned to host the conference, which was again supported by the Research Network 12 on Environment and Society of the European Sociological Association and by the Research Committee 24 on Environment and Society as their Midterm Conference. This second conference has drawn of an even larger number of abstracts submitted from around the world. More information can be found at http://www.energyandsociety.confer.uj.edu.pl/ .

How to become a member

The network welcomes all researchers within the social sciences interested in becoming members. There are no membership fees.

Those interested in joining may send an email to Pia Laborgne , who is in charge of the communication through the network’s mailing list. All queries should be addressed to her.