Method to imagine energy futures from a feminist perspective

When gender is included in energy research, academics mostly rely on traditional qualitative methods as interviews and observations to gain insights into imagined futures. However, as important as these are to collect a plurality of voices, they seem insufficient when it comes to uncovering the imagined worlds rather than isolated elements pre-determined by research agendas and policy desires.In my PhD I used a storytelling method to place the voices and visions of vendors at the center of the future of Mexico City's public markets and their energy systems. Vendors were invited to collectively produce a fictional story of a market in 2050. The stories opened by detailing their imagined storyworld and the energy systems that powered it. Then they moved to events that could change those worlds and provided a description of who participated and how. Finally, the method closed with conversations about the created visions. During this video article, I elaborate on the method, examine the pros and cons of such an approach, as well as some of the results obtained by using it. With this, I hope that the method used could be employed to support energy transitions research and planning across local and regional scales.