Energy Justice and the Capability Approach—Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue emerges from the conference “Energy justice and the Capability Approach—interdisciplinary perspectives”, which took place in Malmö in the south of Sweden 12–13 September 2018. The point of departure was the burgeoning interest in studying issues of energy justice among social scientists and philosophers, together with the fact that the Capability Approach has become one of the most influential theoretical tools for conceptualising questions related to social justice. The purpose of the conference was to explore the potential of the Capability Approach for approaching issues of energy justice. At the conference, keynote lectures and papers with that purpose were presented from the perspective of the social sciences and philosophy. They covered diverse topics, such as energy justice in the Brazilian Amazon, ethics and nuclear energy, and natural gas development in central Arkansas. Building on the conference’s success, this special issue now extends the theoretical, conceptual and empirical insights gained during this session, including contributions from authors beyond those that attended the conference, to present a state-of-the-art exploration of how the Capability Approach can be applied to the field of energy justice, and what might be gained by doing so.