The Colour of Heating was Red: An overview of historical and policy narratives of domestic heating in Sweden, 1940 - present : JustHeat Strand II Report

• This report has been written within the project Looking Back to Move Forward: a Social and Cultural History of Heating (JustHeat). The aim of the project is to unpack previous heating transitions at the home front since 1940 in order to enable more just and inclusive heating transitions in the future. The background is the notion that home heating transitions are deeply personal in the sense that they affect daily routines, division of labour between family members, and how we use our homes and energy alike. While there is much to be learned from intended as well as unintended effects of previous transitions, little effort has been put into understanding the lived experiences of technological changes in home heating, despite the uneven yet deep impacts they have had in society. This project will fill this gap by using oral histories to collect individual and collective experiences of home heating transitions that can complement and nuance dominating transition narratives.As a starting point, this report aims to tell the history of home heating in Sweden as it has been documented and told in policymaking and in the public debate. This will primarily be done by reviewing formative political documents and newspaper articles. In so doing, current transitions in domestic heating can be better understood in light of past transitions, and this report can be used as a formal narrative against which to confirm, complement, and contrast the oral histories. It is by no means a complete review of the events, arguments, and effects of home heating transitions since the 1940’s, but it captures some of the most important changes that – more or less, and for better or for worse – have affected people’s everyday lives.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

rap (subject category)

vet (subject category)