Assessing the Contestation in Biofuel Production Approaches in India

• In Event: Climate Technologies and Unintended Consequences 2

Abstract

The paper attempts to examine the emergence and trajectory of the biofuels in India by comparing its development in the two Indian States namely-Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. The present study is cross-cultural in nature as it takes the case of the two States where biofuels have diverging trajectories of production. This comparison of the two societies different in their economy, geography, culture, polity etc. poses different queries:
o How do various socioeconomic and politico-cultural factors influence the production of knowledge and its application in biofuels in India?
o What are the differences and similarities shared by the socio-technological systems in biofuel production in India?
Keeping the research objectives in mind, data were collected through a combination of discussions, in-depth interviews, and personal observation. The study focuses on cultures and practices of science and technology because these have major implications for both, how science and technology are perceived in policy terms and their ability to deliver the goods to the farming community at one end, and on the other, a greater access of energy for larger community. The study is anchored in the discipline of sociology of science and technology (SST), and draws theoretical understanding particularly from "social construction of technology" (Pinch and Bijker 1987; Bijker 1995) and "actor-network theory" (Law and Callon 1992; Latour 2005). The study contributes to existing literature of SST by implementing its methods and strategies germane for energy-agriculture interaction, and further, it may extend the rubric of socio-energy in the case of biofuel production in India.

Authors

• Rahul Shukla, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

• Sambit Mallick, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati