The Dangers of Recognition for Energy Justice

In energy justice, it is generally assumed that recognition is just and that misrecognition should be battled. However, recently, critical theorists have articulated multiple dangers intrinsic to recognition that remain largely unthematized in energy justice scholarship. By drawing on Critical Theory literature and empirical examples, I argue that in some cases, legitimate struggles for recognition can still contribute to energy injustice; in other words, recognition is dangerous or ambivalent. Conceiving recognition as ambivalent invites researchers to distinguish between the legitimacy of (a) misrecognition claims and (b) norms and identities (re)produced through seeking and granting recognition.