Bioenergy experts and their imagined “obligatory publics” in the United States: Implications for public engagement and participation

Abstract

The social science literature on renewable energy technology (RET) development emphasizes how imagined publics who play passive roles in technology systems influence technology design and public engagement. It further documents expert adherence to deficit models for conceptualizing publics' responses to RETs. Building on this literature, this paper examines two related questions that have received little attention. First, how do experts conceptualize publics whose direct participation with technology development, rather than quiescence toward technology development, is framed by experts as mandatory for the RET project's success? Second, given both the prevalence and problematic outcomes of expert and institutional adherence to deficit models, what might an alternative model for conceptualizing publics look like? To address these questions, we draw from a case study of 30-bioenergy experts‖ in the Northeastern U.S. and their imagined landowning publics. Our analysis provides two contributions. First, we develop the concept-obligatory publics‖ to examine expert imaginaries of publics whose direct participation is seen as mandatory for successful RET development. And second, we suggest a-hermeneutic-dialectic‖ approach, which emphasizes the role of dialogue between experts and publics for achieving new and mutually agreed upon understandings, as one possible alternative to public deficit models.

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