Dr Chantal Carr: Can the concept of care infrastructures play a role in regional energy transitions?

Energy transitions are social transitions, shifting existing patterns of everyday life and challenging shared societal values. This is especially evident in Australia’s carbon-intensive regions, where community capacities to cohere and care for each other are being re-shaped. In this paper I draw on the concept of care infrastructures to analyse some of the contemporary social dimensions of regional energy transitions. Care infrastructures are ‘forms that pattern the organisation of care within society’ (Power and Mee 2020: 489). The case study focuses on the Illawarra, a region on the cusp of a new wave of change prompted by imperatives to decarbonise heavy industry, the globalisation of coal capital, and the emergence of new renewables infrastructure, including offshore wind. I identify the care infrastructures that have long underpinned industrial change in the region, noting that capacities to care have always existed at the household and community scale. I examine the challenges energy transitions present for existing care infrastructures and identify where gaps are emerging around support for affected workers and the broader community, before concluding with some implications for transition planning and policy.​

Chantel Carr is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the Discipline of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Wollongong. Her research looks at energy and sustainability transitions, with a focus on how climate change is transforming work practices, places and communities that have historically been at the heart of the carbon economy. Chantel’s work often highlights the deeply grounded expertise and place-based knowledges that shape localised responses to planning, climate and energy policy.​