ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the scale- and place-dependent nature of the relationship between the material and technical properties of energy circulations, on the one hand, and different types of social formations – individuals, households, communities – on the other. It presents the contours of a geographical framework for studying the multiple facets of security, sustainability, space and place as they relate to energy, while foregrounding themes in debates within the disciplines of human geography, planning, environmental science, economics and political science. The chapter offers a critical exploration of existing scholarship in the emergent domain of energy geographies. It highlights the need for a sui generis disciplinary perspective on the wider political and spatial levers that underpin energy recovery, transmission and consumption. The chapter seeks to reframe existing debates on the subject, in terms of the intrinsic material and social properties of energy as they relate to the production of place and space.
