From framework to boundary object? Reviewing gaps and critical trends in global energy justice research
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Date
2021
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Elsevier
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Abstract
The concept of energy justice (EJ) has gained importance in discussions about energy transitions, mainly due to a growing number of researchers working on the social implications of greenhouse gas emission reductions. At the moment, EJ is defined as a framework for discussing fairness in energy systems and operates as an umbrella term to signify various concerns related to energy development across diverse groups to enable communication. Thus, we call EJ a boundary object (BO) and discuss its further evolution into a standard, or its dissolution into several locally specific concepts. This study provides a systematic review of the literature that applies the concept of EJ: how its features developed and how it gained popularity in academic publications to mid-2019. We present a bibliometric overview of the number of occurrences of the concept across the literature using the Scopus and WOS databases (N = 182) and, using VOSviewer software, we describe similarities between research topics to which the concept was related. By mapping out its diverse thematic and geographic applications, we review the critical trends and claim that EJ can address real-life challenges. We submit that it will have more practical power once it starts being used more broadly to build cooperation among scholars, policymakers, activists, and grassroots movements.
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Sponsor
This work has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme “SECURe – Subsurface Evaluation of Carbon Capture and storage and Unconventional risks” (grant agreement number 764531 at Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), and National Science Center, OPUS “Powering the world: STS and anthropology towards social studies on new energies” (grant number 2017/25/HS6/00880). Krzysztof Mączka is supported by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP).
Keywords
Energy justice, Literature review, Boundary concepts, Boundary objects, VOS viewer, Energy transition
Citation
Energy Research & Social Science 2021, Vol. 79: 102191.