People-energy relations have always been at the core of social relations and
processes of subjectivation, as they shape and are shaped by power dynamics,
meaning-making and senses of self.
However, Social and Political Psychology are yet to fully recognize and analyse
people-energy relations as psycho-social-political and a key area of interest and
relevance for social psychology theorising.
This presentation will contribute to discuss the conceptualization and analysis of
people-energy relations as a key arena of socio-psychological governance and
socio-political structuring. More specifically, it will propose the relevance of
energy citizenship as a subject of study and an analytical tool for contributing to
understand and address sustainability through a social psychology framework.
For that, it will draw on some examples and illustrations from research on
energy citizenship in Portugal that focus both on the enactment and negotiation
of energy citizenship(s) from the bottom-up - as with local resistances to large
scale hydroelectric power plants -, and on the hegemonic forms of energy
citizenship constituted and reified in and by the polity - as through public
policies, laws, and institutions. The contributions of energy citizenship for a
social psychology of citizenship will be discussed.