Societal and environmental challenges present challenges for our current industrial systems. In order to respond to these difficulties, various alternative systems have been suggested, as they promise sustainability and increased societal quality of life enabled by innovative technologies. These future solutions hold the capacity to solve problems by unlocking considerable business potential. However, the journey to the forthcoming era will bring dramatic changes, not only to the success of incumbent industrial stakeholders but also to their very existence. The upcoming changes are impregnated with hazards to current business models of successful organizations. So, one may ask what impact future technologies may have on the realms that industrial actors live in? To disentangle the complexity of the unknowns, multitudes of collaborative efforts in protected spaces have emerged globally to experiment with potential systems on the road to sociotechnical transitions. The transport sector is undergoing efforts towards transitions to future sustainable systems. This sector has a special focus when it comes to sustainability challenges due to its substantial economic and environmental impact.  Bus systems are at the heart of this challenge due to the central role they play in urban mobility. Hence, different fuels and charging technologies for buses have been tested in pilot projects to facilitate the march towards sustainability; electric charging is one of the promising technologies, which achieve this aim. However, current business models of incumbent transport stakeholders seem to be problematic, and changes to facilitate the transitions seem to be complex. Extant literature indicates a critical role of business models under sociotechnical transitions. Theoretically, there is an underlying need for incumbents to change their business models to reap the benefits of innovative technologies. However, this change is difficult and potential business models are far from clear. With that, the dynamics of business models under transition remains as an underexplored area, and the challenge to incumbent business models poses itself as an interesting area to gauge. Under this umbrella, a question arises regarding how the pressure on incumbent business models interacts with systemic innovations. This thesis is a case study of an incumbent bus operator participating in a pilot project on a future bus system. The case study is in-depth in nature and investigates the potential business model of a bus operator in a multiple stakeholder pilot project, which tests an inductive electric hybrid bus. With a strong empirical exploratory nature, this thesis is built on an “insider” single case study that occurred in the year 2016-2017. The focus of the study is on the pressure on bus operator business model in the face of systemic innovation. The findings reveal positive future value proposition, disrupted value creation, and unclear value capture in the potential business model of the operator. Moreover, the findings show lock-in and resource dependence situation of the operator’s current business model. The lock-in of the business model hinder the transition to future sociotechnical bus system and makes it difficult to commercialize the new technology. The outcome of this thesis speaks to a significant influence of history and the regulator, manifested by rules on the future of business models of commercial incumbent stakeholders. This demonstrates lock-in may prove to be a major impediment, and that unchained and flexible business model of incumbents is critical for further continuation of successful shifts. Given these findings, this thesis suggests applying the business model lens to pilot projects for sustainability. This would aid in better comprehending how current business models may facilitate or hinder favorable transitions. This knowledge informs both managerial decisions and policy making, especially when it comes to resource optimization and investment decisions. / <p>QC 20190416</p> / Wireless Bus Stop Charging

In the global West, electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous tools for daily life. They facilitate communication, navigation, and commerce, among other online activities that generate unprecedented amounts of user data. This licentiate thesis examines the perspectives of scholars employing feminist approaches towards understanding and conceptualizing emergent technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithms, which utilize data as a representation of realities and lived experiences. Grounding their perspectives in the feminist tradition of critiquing power structures and hegemonies, scholars offer valuable insights into envisioning technologically supported futurities that transcend mere inclusion and instead prioritize diversity. This text examines how scholars with feminist approaches understand the datafied present and envision futurities. This thesis also explores how potential risks and benefits of datafication, the translation of action into data, are expressed in data feminist texts.  In the first article, Feminist Data Studies and the Emergence of a New Data Feminist Knowledge Domain, a series of searches were conducted in databases and search engines, followed by citation chaining to collect relevant scholarly texts. Data collection was followed by visualization and close reading, while employing sociotechnical imaginaries as a conceptual lens. This approach facilitated an exploration of how scholars with feminist perspectives envision, interpret, and reimagine data-driven technologies. The second article, Utopian and Dystopian Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Big Data in a portion of the corpus, compared framings and perceptions of big data to those identified in the policies of the European Commission.  The summary essay underscores several key findings. Firstly, the nuanced implications of visibility and representation in the context of datafication. Particularly, the tension and the contrasting imperatives, to amplify the visibility of marginalized groups and to safeguard their privacy and mitigate potential harm. Secondly, the centrality of power dynamics and minority group vulnerability in discussions surrounding control over data flows. Finally, corrective approaches and feminist refusal were found to be the ways in which scholars are attempting to contribute to shaping more equitable and inclusive technological futures. These findings contribute to making visible the hegemonies and power imbalances in datafied systems from the perspectives of scholars with feminist approaches as well as to understanding how they are pushing back against them.

This dissertation examines the debates and discourses surrounding the Korean Astronaut Program (KAP) using the concepts of sociotechnical imaginaries, sociotechnical vanguards, and the construction of expertise. Based on documentary analysis and oral interviews, this research considers KAP as an example of how the visions of sociotechnical vanguards conflict and their failure to construct a unified sociotechnical imaginary. Furthermore, it contends that the expertization of the Korean astronaut failed because of the public openness of KAP. KAP was proposed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and run by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). These two sociotechnical vanguards, MOST and KARI, provided different visions to the Korean public sphere, which already ascribed to its own image of an astronaut. MOST imagined the future Korea as a science-loving nation in which especially the next generations would have a strong interest in science and technology. Thus, MOST defined KAP as a science popularizing program and the Korean astronaut as a science popularizer. However, imagining a better Korea with better science and technology, KARI defined KAP as a research program that would lead to human space flight technology and considered the Korean astronaut a space expert. However, in the Korean public sphere, the widely shared expectation was a better Korea with a Korean heroic astronaut, because having a hero similar to that in other countries could position Korea on par with other advanced countries. These three visions conflicted in Korean society during KAP, and none of them succeeded in becoming the dominant sociotechnical imaginary. This elicited severe criticism of KAP and the Korean astronaut. KAP was also a good example of expertization with public openness. Credibility is the most important part of modern scientific practice. Without credibility, scientific experts cannot exercise their authority. Credibility rests on social markers such as academic degrees, track records, and institutional affiliation. However, these social markers are not suddenly assigned to an expert, who spends much time and effort attaining them. Rather, experts are made in a continuous process of improvement. Therefore, this research focuses on the process through which a person becomes an expert in emerging science and proposes the new terminology: expertization. Usually, the expertization process is hidden behind a public image. People do not know how experts obtain social markers, despite believing that these verify expertise. However, when the expertization process open to the public, it could be easily destroyed. KARI tried to position the Korean astronaut as a space expert. The first Korean astronaut did not become an expert overnight, but emerged as such to the Korean public through a selection process, training, and spaceflight. However, unlike other expertization, all steps comprising KAP were broadcast, and the expertization of Dr. Soyeon Yi, the first Korean astronaut, was open to the public. Consequently, her expertise was questioned each time the public found an element that did not satisfy their expectations. This research also clarifies the meaning of gender in emerging science. Dr. Soyeon Yi became the first Korean astronaut before any Korean male. In this way, KAP provided an important meaning to women in science, especially in the field of emerging science, which is usually dominated by males. Through these discussions, this research expands the application of sociotechnical imaginary and expert studies. It also enhances understanding of these discourses in Korean society, and stimulates discussions of the negative consequences of research programs. / Doctor of Philosophy / In April 2008, the first Korean Astronaut, Dr. Soyeon Yi, was launched to the International Space Station. The Korean nation welcomed their astronaut and believed this marked Korea's entry into the space age. However, before long, this aspiration changed to severe criticism. This research analyzes the Korean Astronaut Program (KAP) from its proposal to after its spaceflight in terms of its reception by Korean society. The Korean Astronaut Program was proposed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) to overcome the science and engineering crisis in 2004. As such, MOST defined KAP as a science-popularization program and the Korean astronaut as a science popularizer. However, as the first human space program in Korea, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), who ran KAP, considered it a research program to achieve human spaceflight technology and the Korean astronaut a space expert. These two different understandings were communicated to the Korean public sphere. However, the Korean pubic already had its own image of the "heroic" astronaut based on other countries' space programs and popular culture. The public thought that having an astronaut would position the country on par with other countries. Because the visions of MOST, KARI, and the Korean public differed, KAP could not satisfy the expectations of all three actors. In addition, the process through which Dr. Yi became the first Korean astronaut was opened to the Korean public. Consequently, when the public found an element that did not satisfy their expectations, they doubted Dr. Yi as a space expert, bringing about severe criticism of KAP and the concept of the Korean astronaut.

Historical accounts depict NASA's interactions with American citizens beyond government agencies and aerospace firms since the 1950s and 1960s as efforts to 'sell' its human space flight initiatives and to position external publics as would-be observers, consumers, and supporters of such activities. Characterizing citizens solely as celebrants of NASA's successes, however, masks the myriad publics, engagement modes, and influences that comprised NASA's efforts to forge connections between human space flight and citizens after Apollo 11 culminated. While corroborating the premise that NASA constantly seeks public and political approval for its costly human space programs, I argue that maintaining legitimacy in light of shifting social attitudes, political priorities, and divided interest in space flight required NASA to reconsider how to serve and engage external publics vis-à-vis its next major human space program, the Space Shuttle. Adopting a sociotechnical imaginary featuring the Shuttle as a versatile technology that promised something for everyone, NASA sought to engage citizens with the Shuttle in ways appealing to their varied, expressed interests and became dependent on some publics' direct involvement to render the vehicle viable economically, socially, and politically. NASA's ability and willingness to democratize the Shuttle proved difficult to sustain, however, as concerns evolved following the Challenger accident among NASA personnel, political officials, and external publics about the Shuttle's purpose, value, safety, and propriety. Mapping the publics and engagement modes NASA regarded as crucial to the Shuttle's legitimacy, this case study exposes the visions of public accountability and other influences -- including changing perceptions of a technology -- that can govern how technoscientific institutions perceive and engage various external publics. Doing so illuminates the prospects and challenges associated with democratizing decisions and uses for space and, perhaps, other technologies managed by U.S. government agencies while suggesting a new pathway for scholarly inquiry regarding interactions between technoscientific institutions and external publics. Expanding NASA's historical narrative, this study demonstrates that entities not typically recognized as space program contributors played significant roles in shaping the Shuttle program, substantively and culturally. Conceptualizing and valuing external publics in these ways may prove key for NASA to sustain human space flight going forward. / Ph. D.

Submitted by Celso Magalhaes (celsomagalhaes@ufrrj.br) on 2017-10-26T10:24:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Rafael Sousa Rodrigues.pdf: 2935295 bytes, checksum: c8d29737cc1dbea08ea979f5566e42bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-26T10:25:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Rafael Sousa Rodrigues.pdf: 2935295 bytes, checksum: c8d29737cc1dbea08ea979f5566e42bc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-25 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / The implementation of governmental programs of decentralization of water access and management stands as an important chapter in the recent trajectory of state intervention in the Brazilian semi-arid region. Public policies such as the One Million Cisterns Program (P1MC) and the One Land and Two Waters Program (P1 + 2), proposed by the Articula??o Semi?rido Brasileiro (ASA -Articulation in the Brazilian Semi-arid), undergo, currently, a process of consolidation as innovative experiences of social participation in the formulation and implementation of public policies. Several technologies developed as a result of historical processes of interaction established between sertanejo peasants and nature in the semi-arid region, or generated in the realm of civil society organizations or research institutions, started to be developed as an alternative to the hegemonic model of State intervention centered in large scale development projects oriented by the concept of ?drought combat?. ASA was a fundamental actor in the recovery, systematization, valuing and development of several technologies, presented as an alternative to large scale engineering works historically advocated by public policies. ASA's work and the critique of social organizations against the criticism of the drought combat model placed the technological issue at the center of public debate. In a context of enhancing interactions between civil society and the State, enabled by the political democratization of the country, this debate reached the spaces of policy formulation. In the present work, we will try to understand the trajectory of construction of public policies oriented by the approach of coexistence with the semi-arid and how the interactions established between the public power and civil society organizations, influenced the generation, dissemination and institutionalization of the technologies proposed by P1MC and P1 + 2. As conceptual references, we used approaches related to the field of Social Studies on Science and Technology, particularly social constructivism and the Muti-level Perspective. Research methods encompassed interviews with key stakeholders involved in the process of formulation and implementation of the studied policies, analyzing, as well, audit documentation, meeting minutes and technical and executive projects related to the various phases of implementation of the programs analyzed. The research findings show that the interaction between civil society and the State in the legislation process constitutes a key arena in the pattern making and manualization procedures of the technologies of coexistence with the semi-arid / A implanta??o de programas governamentais de descentraliza??o do acesso ? ?gua figura como um cap?tulo importante na trajet?ria recente de interven??o estatal no semi?rido brasileiro. Propostas pela Articula??o Semi?rido Brasileiro (ASA), pol?ticas como o Programa Um Milh?o de Cisternas (P1MC) e o Programa Uma Terra e Duas ?guas (P1+2) v?m se consolidando, no per?odo mais recente, como experi?ncias inovadoras de participa??o social na formula??o e implementa??o de pol?ticas p?blicas. Nesse processo, diversas tecnologias desenvolvidas na intera??o hist?rica dos camponeses sertanejos com a natureza semi?rida, ou geradas no ?mbito de organiza??es da sociedade civil e institui??es de pesquisa passaram a ser implementadas como alternativas ao modelo de interven??o estatal hegem?nico, centrado nas grandes obras de ?combate ? seca?. A cria??o da ASA foi um ator fundamental no resgate, sistematiza??o, valoriza??o e desenvolvimento de muitas tecnologias alternativas ao modelo das grandes obras preconizado, historicamente, pelas pol?ticas governamentais. A atua??o da ASA e a cr?tica das organiza??es sociais ao modelo de combate ? seca colocaram a quest?o tecnol?gica no centro do debate p?blico. Em um contexto de crescentes intera??es entre a sociedade civil e o Estado, oportunizado pelo processo de democratiza??o pol?tica do pa?s, este debate alcan?ou os espa?os de formula??o de pol?ticas. No presente trabalho, buscaremos compreender como se deu a trajet?ria de constru??o das pol?ticas p?blicas orientadas pelo enfoque da conviv?ncia com o semi?rido e como as intera??es estabelecidas entre o poder p?blico e as organiza??es da sociedade civil influenciaram o processo de gera??o, dissemina??o e institucionaliza??o das tecnologias propostas pelo P1MC e P1+2. Para tanto utilizamos enfoques situados no campo dos Estudos Sociais da Ci?ncia e da Tecnologia, com destaque para o construtivismo social e a Perspectiva Multin?vel. Em termos metodol?gicos, realizamos entrevistas com atores-chave, diretamente envolvidos no processo de formula??o e implementa??o das pol?ticas estudadas, analisando, tamb?m, um extenso conjunto de documentos, incluindo auditorias, minutas de reuni?es e projetos t?cnicos e executivos referentes ?s diversas fases de implanta??o dos programas analisados. A pesquisa constatou que a intera??o entre a sociedade civil e o Estado na constru??o destas pol?ticas ? um espa?o fundamental no processo de modeliza??o e manualiza??o das tecnologias de conviv?ncia com o semi?rido

Les dispositifs de publication et d'échanges d'information sur Internet ont pu susciter l'intérêt du marketing qui est à l'écoute des usagers sur le web afin de tirer parti de leur créativité et des informations délivrées sur les produits et les services. Dans cette thèse, nous cherchons à rendre compte du travail d'encadrement des collectifs d'usagers par des professionnels du marché sur Internet. En effet, l'organisation des usagers en réseaux, qui échangent expertises et opinions sur les entreprises, les produits et services, peut compliquer la mise en place de dispositifs de captation. Le travail d'encadrement peut tout d'abord porter sur la canalisation d'informations échangées sur des produits et services, au sein de communautés existantes. Nous avons exploré le marché des dispositifs de veille sur Internet et les usages spécifiques de ces outils par un grand fournisseur d'accès à Internet. Dans un deuxième temps, nous avons analysé le travail relationnel entrepris par des professionnels de la communication vis-À-Vis de blogueurs ciblés afin de favoriser la construction de discours positifs sur les produits et services. Nous avons démontrés que ceux-Ci développent des stratégies de calcul de leurs intérêts sur le long terme et aménagent les discours sur la marque en fonction de leur ligne éditoriale. Afin d'assurer la pérennité des liens avec un plus grand nombre de clients, les professionnels peuvent choisir de mettre en place des cadres sociotechniques afin d'héberger des communautés. Nous nous sommes appuyées sur des observations ethnographiques de communautés mises en place par des entreprises de biens et services afin de rendre compte des dispositifs de cadrage des liens, depuis des échanges de proximité entre un client et une marque vers des liens horizontaux entre collectifs et professionnels autour des produits. Si les sites communautaires sont des lieux d'aménagement spécifique de liens entre consommateurs et produits, ils sont aussi des espaces où s'organise la gestion des expressions collectives afin d'éviter la rupture des liens. Nous nous sommes intéressées à deux dispositifs qui mettent en évidence ce travail avec d'une part, un forum institutionnel mis en place par un grand fournisseur de services, et d'autre part une plateforme qui accueille des "débats" entre experts et usagers d'une grande entreprise de transport. Les entretiens et recueils de données sur les sites montrent des formes de détournement des règles par les usagers, et les rôles adaptés de professionnels officiels et officieux en interaction avec les clients. / The devices of publication and exchange of information on Internet have interested marketing services that take advantage of their creativity and information provides on products and services. In the thesis, we try to report on the work of supervision of communities of users by market professionals on the Internet. Indeed, the organization of users in networks, exchanging expertise and opinions on companies, products and services, can complicate the implementation of capture devices. The framing can first consist in channeling information exchanged on products and services, within communities. We first explored the market of devices aimed at monitoring discussions between users and specific uses of these tools by a large Internet service provider. In a second step, we analyzed the relational work undertaken by professionals of communication with target bloggers in order to promote a positive discourse on products and services. We demonstrate that they develop strategies for calculating their interests in the long run and talk about the brands according to their editorial strategies. To ensure the continuity of links with a larger number of clients, professionals can choose to implement sociotechnical framework, in order to host communities. We reported the framing devices of links from local exchanges between a client and a brand to horizontal linkages between community and professional around the products thanks to an ethnographic observation of communities set up by companies of goods and services. Social networking sites permit specific configuration of links between consumers and products, and they also organize collective expressions in order to avoid breaking links between companies and consumers. We have been interested in two devices that highlight this work: an institutional forum set up by a major supplier of services, and also a platform that hosts debates between experts and users of a large transport company. The interviews and data collections on the sites show us that the users can circumvent the rules and official and unofficial professionals in interaction with customers have to adjust their roles.

Les travaux menés dans cette thèse CIFRE s’inscrivent dans le cadre d’une collaboration pérenne entre le CRAN et l'EDF R&D dont un des résultats majeurs a été le développement d'une méthodologie d’analyse de risques, appelée Analyse Intégrée des Risques (AiDR). Cette méthodologie traite des systèmes sociotechniques sous les angles technique, humain et organisationnel et dont les équipements sont soumis à des actions de maintenance et/ou de conduite. La thèse a pour objet ainsi de proposer une évolution du modèle dit de « barrière humaine » développé dans l'AiDR pour évaluer l'efficacité de ces actions humaines prises leur contexte organisationnel. Nos contributions majeures s'organisent autour de 3 axes : 1. Une amélioration de la structure préexistante du modèle de barrière humaine afin d’aboutir à un modèle basé sur des facteurs de forme appelés performance shaping factors (PSF) fournis par les méthodes d’Évaluation Probabiliste de la Fiabilité Humaine (EPFH) ;2. L’intégration de la résilience et la modélisation de l’interaction entre mécanismes résilients et pathogènes impactant l'efficacité des actions dans les relations causales probabilistes ;3. Un traitement global des jugements d’expert cohérent avec la structure mathématique du modèle proposé permettant d’estimer d’une manière objective les paramètres du modèle. Ce traitement se fonde sur la construction d’un questionnaire permettant de "guider" l’expert vers l’évaluation d’effets conjoints issus de l’interaction entre mécanismes pathogènes et résilients. L’ensemble des contributions proposées a été validé sur un cas d’application portant sur une barrière humaine mise en place dans un cas d’inondation externe d’une unité de production d’électricité d’EDF / The work carried out in this CIFRE PhD thesis is part of a long-term collaboration between CRAN and EDF R&D, one of the major results of which was the development of a risk analysis methodology called Integrated Risk Analysis (AiDR). This methodology deals with sociotechnical systems from technical, human and organizational points of view and whose equipment is subjected to maintenance and/or operation activities. This thesis aims to propose an evolution of the so-called "human barrier" model developed in the AiDR in order to evaluate the effectiveness of these human actions taken their organizational context. Our major contributions are organized around 3 axes: 1. Improvement of the pre-existing structure of the human barrier model to achieve a model based on performance shaping factors (PSF) provided by the Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) methods; 2. Integration of resilience and modeling of the interaction between resilient and pathogenic mechanisms impacting the effectiveness of activities in a probabilistic causal framework; 3. A global treatment of the expert judgments consistent with the mathematical structure of the proposed model in order to objectively estimate the parameters of the model. This treatment is based on a questionnaire to guide experts towards the evaluation of joint effects resulting from the interaction between pathogenic and resilient mechanisms. All of the proposed contributions have been validated on an application case involving a human barrier put in place during an external flooding occurring at an EDF power plant

Cette thèse aborde l’institutionnalisation du système socio-technique qui a permis la mobilité automobile entre 1920 et 1950 au Portugal, un pays qui au départ n’est pas producteur de véhicules automobiles et demeure périphérique technologiquement, par l’étude de deux aspects qui sont complémentaires : la régulation de la circulation des automobiles et l’adaptation des routes aux nouveaux véhicules motorisés. C’est une étude sur l’appropriation et la construction de ce système en fonction des actions menées par les usagers, les ingénieurs, les législateurs, les clubs automobiles, les services de voirie ou les organes de l’administration routière. Pendant la période analysée et malgré des taux de motorisation assez faibles, le système socio-technique est institutionnalisé et stabilisé, accompagnant et dialoguant avec la définition des standards internationaux et en créant des structures qui ont influencé le développement de ce système pendant la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle.La façon dont l’institutionnalisation du système a été menée à terme a non seulement permis une augmentation importante du transport routier commercial (au détriment du développement des chemins de fer), mais a aussi protégé une culture élitiste de l’usage des voitures particulières et le développement du tourisme automobile, visible dans la régulation de la circulation et dans la construction de routes touristiques avec des caractéristiques techniques et des budgets spéciaux. Elle a aussi permis le développement de l’ingénierie routière au Portugal avec la création d’un organe autonome d’administration routière et avec la formation de plusieurs ingénieurs qui ont construit une oeuvre que s’est approprié le discours de l’Estado Novo comme un symbole de sa réalisation et de sa modernité. Ces acteurs ont participé à l’élaboration de connaissances techniques ainsi qu’aux négociations de normes sociales et morales et à la construction de représentations au niveau des pratiques des usagers, des discours et de la matérialité de ce système. / This dissertation focuses on the institutionalization of the sociotechnical system, underlying automobility, in Portugal, from 1920 to 1950. By taking into consideration that the country was technologically peripheral and originally no automobiles were locally manufactured, this work developed along two complementary aspects: the regulation of automobile circulation and the adaptation of roads to the new vehicles. This is a study focusing on the appropriation and construction of this system through the interventions of users, engineers, legislators, automobile clubs, road services and administration. In the period under consideration, despite the low rates of motorization, the sociotechnical system institutionalized and stabilized, by following and discussing the definition of international standards and creating structures, which influenced the development of this system, during the second half of the nineteenth century.The way in which the institutionalization of the car system developed allowed not only an increase in commercial road transport in detriment of railways, but also protected an elitist culture regarding the use of private cars and the development of automobile tourism, as shown by circulation regulations and in the construction of tourism roads with special technical and budgetary characteristics. It also allowed the development of road engineering in Portugal, with the creation of an independent organ for road administration and the training of engineers whose works were appropriated by the rhetoric of the dictatorial regime known as New State (Estado Novo) as a symbol of its own accomplishments and modernity. All these actors participated in the construction of a technical discourse and in the negotiations of social and moral norms, as well as of representations at the level of the users’ practices, discourses and the materiality of the sociotechnical car system.Key-words: Sociotechnical system; automobile mobility, Portugal, Estado Novo, roads, motorists.

Universal access to electricity stands high on the global agenda and is regarded as essential for positive development in sectors such as health care, education, poverty reduction, food production and climate change. Decentralized, off-grid electrification is deemed an important complement to centralized grid extension. By utilizing a renewable energy source, solar technology for the generation of electricity, photovoltaics (PV) is being considered as a way forward to minimize the environmental problems related to energy use. This thesis aims to contribute to improving the technical and social feasibility of PV and PV-diesel hybrid micro-grids for the purpose of providing access to electricity to people in rural areas of countries with low level access to electricity. In line with these general aims, the focus has been to address three questions related to challenges in three phases of rural electrification. The work has a multi-disciplinary approach, addressing mainly technical and social aspects of long-term sustainability of micro-grids, in a local context, and the changes these are intended to generate. One specific micro-grid in Tanzania has been used as a major case study. The thesis is developed through three papers, all presenting methodologies or aspects for investigation in rural electrification projects and studies in general, and for PV-diesel hybrid micro-grids in particular. Paper I puts forward a methodology to facilitate non-social scientific researchers to take social aspects increasingly into consideration. Paper II is a guideline to support system users to increasingly apply an evaluation based system operation. Paper III specifically highlights the importance to consider blackouts when investigating how an existing off-grid PV-diesel hybrid system shall be utilized when a national grid becomes available.

A noção de que o desenvolvimento é um processo relacionado a um progresso técnico positivo e linear contribuiu para gerar um cenário social e ambiental insustentável e, aparentemente, tem conduzido a sociedade contemporânea para uma homogeneização cultural e material. Ao contrário, observando amiúde os espaços rurais, se identifica que há a emergência de dinâmicas sócio-espaciais heterogêneas e multifuncionais. Neste contexto, a agricultura exerce papel fundamental como atividade relevante na construção de desenvolvimentos rurais sustentáveis. No entanto, o modelo de modernização agrícola, orientado pelo regime sociotécnico dominante, não responde a este imperativo, tornando fundamental identificar possibilidades de transições para tal regime, de modo a permitir à agricultura a retomada de seu sentido como 'co-produção'. A partir de uma abordagem multinível, multi-ator e multi-aspecto, construída com elementos da Perspectiva Multinível e da Perspectiva Orientada pelo Ator, este trabalho de tese objetivou explorar a potencialidade da 'produção de novidades' para a promoção de transições no regime sociotécnico dominante na agricultura, através da análise de novidades desenvolvidas por agricultores na produção ecológica de plantas medicinais no Sul do Brasil. O estudo qualitativo de cinco casos de famílias de agricultores, que produzem plantas medicinais sob sistema ecológico, mostrou intensa produção de novidades e potencialidade para o estabelecimento de um nicho de inovação, considerando que há ativos processos de articulação de aprendizagens e de estabelecimento de redes sociais. A maior vulnerabilidade na emergência do nicho é a falta de alinhamento de expectativas entre distintos atores envolvidos, que está relacionada à dificuldade em superar barreiras sustentadas pelo regime prevalente. Considerando o nicho como lócus privilegiado para a inovação, essa superação parece depender de uma 'gestão da transição', que pode ser entendida como a criação de condições sócio-institucionais que favoreçam a construção de novas institucionalidades, identidades e compromissos sociais. / The notion that development is a process related to a positive and linear technical progress has generated an unsustainable social and environmental scenario and apparently led to a cultural and material homogenization of society. Rather, closely observing rural spaces, we can identify emergences of heterogeneous socio-spatial and multifunctional dynamics. In this context, agriculture plays an active role in the construction of sustainable rural developments. However, the agricultural modernization patterns, oriented by the dominant sociotechnical regime, is not responding this claim, thus proposing transitions to such regime is fundamental to recover agriculture meaning as 'co-production'. Since a multilevel, multiactor and multi-aspect framework, built taking elements from Multilevel Perspective and Actor Oriented Approach, this thesis aimed to explore the potential of 'novelty production' for promoting transitions in dominant agriculture sociotechnical regime, through the analysis of novelties developed by farmers in medicinal plants ecological production in southern Brazil. Qualitative studies of five cases of farmers' families who produce medicinal plants under ecological system showed an impressive novelty production and potentialities in establishing a niche of innovation, considering that there are active processes of learning articulation and social networks building. The main vulnerability in the niche emergence is the absence of expectations alignment between different enrolled actors, which is related to the difficulty in overcoming prevalent regime. Taking into account that the niche is the core for innovation, this overcoming seems to depend on 'transition management', which can be understood as the creation of enabling social and institutional conditions for construction of new institutionalities, identities and social commitments.