Towards a relational sociology of retrofit

Davis, Mark and Middlemiss, Lucie and Brown, Donal and Hall, Stephen and Bookbinder, Ruth and Owen, Anne and Cairns, Iain and Hannon, Matthew and Brisbois, Marie Claire and Mininni, Giulia (2024) Towards a relational sociology of retrofit. Sociology. ISSN 0038-0385 (In Press)

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Abstract

Decarbonisation of residential buildings (‘retrofit’) is vital if nations are to meet declared net zero targets. This challenge is especially acute in the UK, which has some of the least energy efficient homes in Europe. Yet, to date, sociology has paid relatively little attention either to the urgency of this challenge or to its potential solutions. In this paper, we begin to correct this by reframing the retrofit challenge through the lens of relational sociology, especially the work of Nick Crossley and Viviana Zelizer. By deploying key concepts from their work, we demonstrate how relational sociology helps to identify and to overcome dynamics of trust, power and emotion as meaningful barriers to retrofit at scale. We conclude that the multiple stakeholders seeking to boost energy efficiency interventions in homes should focus less upon incentivizing ‘rational actors’ and more upon reducing, facilitating and smoothing the ‘relational work’ needed to deliver retrofit.

ORCID iDs

Davis, Mark, Middlemiss, Lucie, Brown, Donal, Hall, Stephen, Bookbinder, Ruth, Owen, Anne, Cairns, Iain ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0753-9589, Hannon, Matthew ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7811-3991, Brisbois, Marie Claire and Mininni, Giulia;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)