Levidow, L and Upham, P orcid.org/0000-0003-1998-4698 (2017) Socio-technical change linking expectations and representations: Innovating thermal treatment of municipal solid waste. Science and Public Policy, 44 (2). pp. 211-224. ISSN 0302-3427
Abstract
This paper combines two theoretical perspectives: future technological expectations mobilising resources, and social representations assimilating new ideas through anchoring onto familiar frames of reference. The combination is applied to the controversial case of thermal-treatment options for municipal solid waste, especially via gasification technology. Stakeholders’ social representations set criteria for technological expectations and their demonstration requirements, whose fulfilment in turn has helped gasification to gain more favourable representations. Through a differential ‘anchoring’, gasification is represented as matching incineration’s positive features while avoiding its negative ones. Despite their limitations, current two-stage combustion gasifiers are promoted as a crucial transition towards a truly ‘advanced’ form producing a clean syngas: R&D investment reinforces expectations for advancing the technology. Such linkages between technological expectations and social representations may have broader relevance to socio-technical change, especially where public controversy arises over the wider systemic role of an innovation trajectory.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | technological expectations; social representations; incineration; municipal solid waste; advanced thermal treatment; gasification |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/K036793/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Oct 2016 10:17 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jun 2017 11:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/scipol/scw054 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:105465 |