Energy social science in a critical conjuncture: Toward a framework for strategic transformation research

This Perspective develops a framework for strategic transformation research in energy social science and beyond, grounded in the current conjuncture of social-ecological crisis and institutional instability. It approaches methodology as a purposive orientation of knowledge production toward transformative intervention, structured around three interrelated questions: how to read the current situation, what can be done to change it, and how to build the power needed to do so. Conjunctural analysis addresses the first by identifying historically specific contradictions and their material and political expression. A critical problem-solving approach centred on “next-best steps” addresses the second by identifying politically feasible interventions within the conjuncture that both work within and a selectively unsettle dominant problem framings. The third is addressed through a conceptualisation of the state as a differentiated and contested terrain within which such interventions must be realised. This terrain is embedded within wider fields of social forces and shaped by the structural power of capital. By linking conjunctural diagnosis with strategic intervention and power-building, the framework provides a set of guiding questions for research oriented toward transformation.