Memory in energy transitions: individual agency through historical narratives in the energy transition to gas and electricity in the Dutch household

Abstract Authors adopting socio-technical frameworks to study energy transitions argue that individual behavioural change and the uptake of social and technological innovations on higher-level scales are both imperative for sustainability transitions to come about. However, the way individuals are embedded in the larger system has remained largely unclear. To better understand individual embedment in energy transitions, this paper enriches sustainability transition research with the insights of memory studies. During energy transitions, social actors that enact these transitions change their identity. A core premise of memory studies is that individual and collective remembering cannot do without each other in the constitution of identity. To illustrate the role of memory in energy transitions, this paper conducts a historical case study of the role of housewives in the energy transition to gas and electricity in the Dutch household. By adopting a narrative approach, the historical narratives across the Monthly Magazine of the Dutch Association for Housewives (NVvH), published between 1913 and 1942, are explored. The results show how the master narrative prescribed the guiding principles of the historical narratives that emerged in the energy discourse. However, as part of the flexible nature of memory, a varied ‘menu of stories’ came forward that enabled individuals to identify with different historical narratives, incorporating differing energy sources and drawing on the transformative nature of memory by imagining different energy futures. It is concluded that individual agency in energy transitions moves beyond choices of use and consumption. It rests in the individuals’ ability to identify with a historical narrative that adheres to the way the individual makes sense of the world.