Congratulations to Dr Ping Huang and Dr Linda Westman for being shortlisted for an Early Career Innovation Award for their work for the LO-ACT project. In their statement “A culture led approach to understanding energy transitions in China: The correlative epistemology” Ping and Linda note that China hosts some of the most rapid renewable energy transitions. Due to the unprecedented scale and pace of transformation, the dynamics of China’s energy transitions impact global trends of energy decarbonization. Transition theories within the Anglophone academic tradition tend to misrepresent the social, cultural, and political structures that shape energy transitions in China. Responding to recent calls for developing geographical perspectives on energy transitions that engage with place-based histories and socio-political dynamics, this research proposes a move from an analysis of energy transitions ‘with Chinese characteristics’ to a correlative interpretation that is truly rooted in Chinese epistemological and philosophical constructs. Correlative interpretations of innovation and transition processes in China frame energy transitions within broader societal transformations, define the operation of transition governance, and reveal that pre-existing guanxi networks shape the activities of actors in transition processes.
Read their full statement on understanding energy transitions in China: https://energy-shifts.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ping-Huang-and-Linda-Westman.pdf