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We know that networked infrastructures enable forms of mobility, energy use, and flows of data, and we know that modern life depends on these arrangements. We also know that relations between infrastructures and social practices are recursive, extensive, and multiple. But what of the detail? How do infrastructures shape the many practices to which they relate, and vice versa? The research we describe was designed to address these questions head on. We discuss the arrival and normalisation of gas central heating with reference to householders' experiences and practices and to the ambitions and decisions of utilities and city authorities. In the process, we identify forms of aggregation and of integration on which infrastructure – practice dynamics depend. In taking this approach, we demonstrate the relevance of practice theory for conceptualising and analysing 'large' social phenomena including transitions in energy systems and related patterns of demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy has an ambivalent status in social theory, variously figuring as a driver or an outcome of social and institutional change, or as something that is woven into the fabric of society itself. In this article the authors consider the underlying models on which different approaches depend. One common strategy is to view energy as a resource base, the management and organization of which depends on various intersecting systems: political, economic and technological. This is not the only route to take. The authors develop an alternative approach, viewing energy supply and energy demand as part of the ongoing reproduction of bundles and complexes of social practice. In articulating and comparing these two positions they show how social-theoretical commitments influence the ways in which problems like those of reducing carbon emissions are framed and addressed. Whereas theories of practice highlight basic questions about what energy is for, these issues are routinely and perhaps necessarily obscured by those who see energy as an abstract resource that structures or that is structured by a range of interlocking social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article builds on the suggestion that objects should be thought of not as bounded entities but as sites of flow, mixture and mutation. In arguing that processes of thermal exchange are outcomes and expressions of socio-material organization, the authors demonstrate the potential for linking concepts from physics and social science. Drawing on a recent study of air conditioning in the UK, they show that increasingly standardised notions of room temperature have implications for product and building design, and for how energy circulates through the many components and bodies involved. In describing indoor climates in these terms, they develop a social analysis of thermal exchange that is relevant at the molecular level and for long-term trends in energy demand and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In less than a generation, air conditioning has spread around the world, increasing energy consumption and producing demand where none existed before. How has this come about? This article asks whether transition theories (and the multilevel perspective as an exemplar) are of value in addressing this question and what other approaches might be developed. It is concluded that what seems to be the transnational diffusion of mechanical cooling is best understood as an outcome of multisited processes in which air conditioning is integrated into practices like those of office work, nursing, taking a luxury break or simply living at home. Rather than mapping diffusion across a stable terrain, this perspective argues for a more sophisticated interpretation of how mechanical cooling remakes practices and the places in which they are reproduced. This conclusion has implications for efforts to stem air conditioning and the energy demand associated with it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social theorists have been dealing with issues of environment and climate change for quite some years, but on which topics have they focused and with whom have they been talking? Many of the articles included in this special issue exemplify a tendency to frame problems of climate change in terms of existing concerns, including the character of capitalism, the relation between nature and culture, or the social process of problem definition. Other forms of conceptual development are much more obviously driven by the challenge of understanding and perhaps fostering societal transformation in response to climate change. Meanwhile, policy proceeds on the basis of a characteristically thin account of the social world. In this short article I highlight differences in how these agendas unfold and comment on what this means for types of questions that social theorists have often, sometimes and not yet asked about climate change. I conclude that social theory - broadly defined - has much to offer but that realizing this potential will require concerted effort and active engagement with new and unfamiliar audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 'normalization' of the British freezer. It defines three phases in this process: an initial period oriented around the utility of preserving home produce; a second stage marked by the development of a frozen food infrastructure and the establishment of the freezer as a part of the efficient domestic economy; and a third subtle but significant redefini-tion of the primary benefits of freezing in terms of convenience. Cast in their new role as 'time machines', freezers are sold as a means of managing contemporary pressures associated with the scheduling and co-ordination of domestic life. At one level, this is a story of the gradual acceptance of a rela-tively standardized object. Yet this narrative suggests that the freezer's promised benefits and functions change along the way. Developing this point, we argue that the normalization of the chameleon-like freezer can only be understood in the context of similarly changing systems of food provisioning, patterns of domestic practice and allied technological devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note responds to John Urry's contribution and draws on my own presentation at the BSA Presidential Event on 'How to put 'Society' into Climate Change', held on 8th February 2010 at the British Library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the increasing popularity of showering in Great Britain. There is evidence that people in Great Britain are showering more than ever before and that they are using more powerful showers. Industry forecasts currently anticipate a five fold increase in the number of litres used for showering between 1991 and 2021, accompanied by an equally dramatic decline in the use of the bath. More tangibly, demand for separate shower cubicles has increased at an average of twenty per cent per year since 1999, a figure that suggests the composition of Great Britain bathrooms is on the move and that showering is being positioned as a normal everyday activity. Faced with these trends, environmental policy makers have sought to contain consumption through a series of technical fixes, for example, by promoting water metering, advocating low flow shower-heads and labeling appliances. While not irrelevant, these initiatives take future demand and consumption as foregone conclusions. Focusing on resources rather than on changing habits, such measures suppose that patterns of unsustainable consumption are the result of information deficit, inappropriate technology or inadequate regulation.