Epävarmuutta kohtaamassa

insinöörien ja maallikoiden näkemyksiä sähkökatkoista

Authors

• Antti Silvast

Abstract

Facing uncertainty: Engineers’ and laics’ views on power failures

Power failures have recently aroused a great deal of public and political discussion. Still, the consequences of power failures on human experience have not been effectively studied. Debate on how distribution of electricity has become problematic is only in the beginning.
Information on consumers’ and power suppliers’ behaviour during power failures has not gone beyond technical descriptions, newspaper articles, or cost-benefit analyses. The article is based on interviews of seven specialists of electricity supply and nine urban consumers whom the writer interviewed during 2004 and 2005.
The article deals with the question of how the controllability of electrical infrastructure, supporting everyday life, has become a problematic issue. On its theoretical frame, the article turns to Ulrich Beck’s and Niklas Luhmann’s ideas about risks, or uncertainties of the future. The ideas of these theoreticians have not effectively been studied within the sociology of distribution of electricity.