ASSEMBLY 2025: Greg Marsden, (Re-)locating place in energy demand

Howlett et al. (2009: 92) argue; “The manner and form in which problems are recognized, if they are recognized at all, are important determinants of whether, and how, they will ultimately be addressed by policy-makers”. Policy-makers tend to be organised around the formal institutional scales (national, regional, local) which reflect their democratic or institutional mandates. This leads decision-making logics to organise around territorial demarcations, reflecting the spatial scope of decision-making powers and the social mandate rather than the socio-spatial relations and coming together of infrastructures and practices in place, with all of the relational connectivity which this infers. Policy making also brings a set of often tightly inscribed, yet distinct, sectoral logics. These logics come together in different combinations indifferent places in ways which are often invisible to the decision-makers (Royston and Selby, 2021).

Place is recognised as a problem or opportunity through a lens of inquiry as to why national or local policies are being implemented or not in different areas. This is, indeed, part of what a place lens can offer. However, such a reading does not allow a place lens to define “the manner and form of problems” and, therefore, seems likely to exclude interventions which address the specific coming together of policies, people, infrastructures, geographies and politics that a given context has. The presentation will briefly introduce the ways in which a place lens might be transformative to how policy is made – but also why this might prove challenging given the competing interests and power structures.