Community Based Sociotechnical Imaginaries & the Green Community in Massachusetts

• In Event: U.S. Public Policy

Abstract

This work examines the dynamics of sociotechnical imaginaries (SIs) in the context of energy production and transitions, focusing specifically on their emergence and contestation at the state and local level in Massachusetts. Sociotechnical imaginaries are
defined as collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, attainable through and supportive of advances in science and technology. While SIs are often analyzed for their role in national and state policy,
research increasingly acknowledges that these imaginaries are contested and re-imagined across different levels of governance and power, including local and regionalized contexts. The United States national energy imaginary is highly contested with no durable
vanguard, and governmental buy-in and advancement of any vision seems to oscillate with party control, advantaging and disadvantaging contested visions by the election cycle. For example, policy shifts at the federal level, such as the creation and then gutting
of the EPAs Clean Power Plan, Congress’s massive investment in wind and solar followed by the obliteration of those incentives alongside tax breaks for the promotion of oil and coal, bely corporate sector greenwashing and position the US as an unstable laggard
in fostering both a single vanguard vision and producing policies that stabilize it. In contrast, Massachusetts posits itself as an energy leader with stable and bipartisan support in government, consistent investments in sustainable infrastructure and energy,
and maintains significant innovative investment ambitious climate related goals. This divergence creates a critical space to examine how energy futures are being articulated from below the seats of power. This work combines a discourse analysis of sustainability
vis a vis energy in Massachusetts alongside interviews with advocacy and energy innovation leaders. This work preliminarily suggests that local-level SIs are emerging in Massachusetts with communities actively pursuing the goal of creating various local visions
of "green communities." This localized vision often constitutes a response to perceived inaction or antagonistic policies at higher levels of governance, even when the government is framing clean energy as being core to a good future. Drawing on the concepts
of bounded imaginaries and energy values, this study analyzes how these local, sustainability-focused visions define and attempt to enact energy futures. These bounded imaginaries, rooted in notions of placedness and lived experience, offer alternative sociotechnical
pathways that privilege notions of sustainability through community. The research illuminates the contested nature of SIs within a multi-level governance structure, exploring why these locally articulated imaginaries -despite their ultimate durability and
imperatives—may remain bounded, and fail to migrate to a larger scale imaginary nor achieve wider national policy traction.

Author

• Guy Bellino, Salem State University