ABSTRACT

Olivier Coutard (0000-0002-3064-5526) and Elizabeth Shove (0000-0002-4792-5479)

Mainstream policy and engineering approaches often suppose that consumers’ needs for resources such as energy, water or data precede the development of infrastructures, and that the task of governments and firms alike is to predict and provide for these needs. In this chapter we argue that infrastructures, the social practices they sustain, the devices and appliances involved and the patterns of demand that follow are interlinked and that they mutually influence each other. We identify three ideal typical formulations – one in which ever-expanding infrastructures are linked to increasingly demanding practices; one in which infrastructures shrink or change, but sustain and stabilise current practices, and one in which practices and supporting infrastructures are radically reconstituted. We conclude by commenting on the scope for engendering configurations of infrastructures and practices that would be much less carbon-intensive than those with which we are familiar today.