System boundaries as epistemological and ethnographic problems: assessing energy technology and socio-environmental impact

This article examines an epistemological dilemma at the center of social and environmental impact assessment: where when system boundaries that define extent energy technology with socio-environmental should be drawn. We demonstrate how give rise to different problems, first, is studied across commodity chains, notably in life cycle assessments (LCA), second, given a spatial, or areal, dimension. More than just posing however, we argue present ethnographic problem they exposed cultural as well political analysis. As artefacts, sustain power-serving worldviews, way are drawn discussions on transitions calls into question existence technologies relies geographical displacement load, including flows resources, land, emissions. observe human inclination perceive objects co-extensive their physical boundaries, for example through fetishism, but truncating global material relations technologies, socially uneven resource metabolize them obscured.