Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The role of professionals’ imaginaries in the development of smart home technologies

Juliani Pereira, Vinicius ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2032-4550 and Hargreaves, Tom ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3764-7364 (2024) Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The role of professionals’ imaginaries in the development of smart home technologies. Futures. ISSN 0016-3287

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Abstract

This article draws on a co-design workshop with professionals working in the field of smart energy in the UK, to explore their imaginaries of smart homes and how these are (in)formed by their everyday ‘lay’ experiences. Smart home technologies (SHTs) are fundamentally embedded in future visions of energy transitions as they are expected to support actions to tackle climate change. Nevertheless, literature and adoption rates reveal an apparent gap between householders’ needs, expectations, and uses of SHTs, and how professional designers and developers view the same technology. Previous studies on SHTs imaginaries coming from industry and experts have focused on how users are represented in institutional visions, however, they routinely neglect the individual subjectivities of professionals producing such representations. The article presents three core results on the role of SHTs in digital energy futures: (1) it generates visual and textual conceptualizations of professionals’ imaginaries around smart domestic environments; (2) it identifies empirical insights on the formative role of professionals’ personal imaginaries for smart energy transitions; and (3) it calls for an alternative and more reflexive co-design practice to envision a fairer and more inclusive energy future.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding information: The authors acknowledge the support of the GECKO Innovative Training Network and the Energy Systems Catapult UK. This project received funding from the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 MSCA-ITN-2020 Innovative Training Networks program (Grant Agreement No 955422).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2024 10:30
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2024 01:09
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96314
DOI:	10.1016/j.futures.2024.103458

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