Cosmopolitan, dynamic, and contested energy futures: Navigating the pluralities and polarities in the energy systems of tomorrow

Abstract The futures of energy are cosmopolitan, dynamic, and full of contradictions. There are multiple actors and institutions with multiple aims and interests advancing the futures of energy; at the same time, these futures are envisioned differently and will, therefore, be produced and negotiated heterogeneously. This context highlights that energy futures are not free of cultural, political, and economic influence, and hence can be best-approached with cosmopolitan and plural lenses. This collection evidences plurality in terms of the disparate geographic locations, disciplinary foundations, conceptual frameworks, and methodological choices of our authors and their papers. This breadth points to the many roads of imagining the sociotechnicality of energy futures and of making these expectations real and durable. We suggest embracing plurality and reflexivity, and understanding the politics of energy futures, at the same time that we also issue a caveat on the complexity of these processes. Claiming no comprehensiveness or closure, our collective contributions should be taken as works-in-progress in the unending quest to understand, analyze, and critique the plurality of the futures of energy and the ways we imagine, navigate, and contest them.