![]() ![]() In particular, this approach can open up a critical space around future socio-technical imaginaries of smartness and convenience by exploring the investments that individuals have in different forms of engagement with the world and the relationship between these forms and particular technologies. In this paper, we show how a novel combination of narrative interviews and multimodal methods can help in exploring future imaginaries through the lens of biographical experiences of socio-technical changes in how energy is used domestically. Qualitative social science research can aid deliberation by exploring the meanings of technologies within everyday practices, as is demonstrate by Yolande Strengers’ ethnographic work on everyday energy use and imaginaries of ‘smartness’. It has been argued that social technology assessment requires critique of the ‘worlds’ implicated in the future imaginaries through which expectations take shape around new technologies. Furthermore, primary research into the wellbeing of off-gridders, compared to on-gridders, ultimately proves that individual’s wellbeing is enhanced by living off-grid through social, environmental and economic factors. The purpose of research is to synthesise socio-cultural off-grid research and literature regarding wellbeing. A key aim of research is to create an ethnographic ‘fiction’ that can only be achieved by researching individuals in a holistic manner. Thematic analysis and narrative analysis are applied to in-depth data which is supported by statistical analysis of questionnaires. ![]() Using a mixed methods approach (interviews, participant observation and questionnaires), qualitative and quantitative data is produced which shows that some people can be ‘more off-grid’ than others. The purpose of the research is to identify what aspects of living off-grid they associate with, and how these perceptions vary between those that have first-hand experience, and those that have preconceptions. The study takes a subjectivist and interpretive approach to researching the motivations of off-gridders and how they construct meaning in their everyday lives. ![]()
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