Toward an interpretive approach to recognition justice in energy transitions

Over the past decade, energy justice scholarship has expanded substantially, developing frameworks for assessing equity and fairness across energy systems and transitions. Recognition justice has emerged as a core dimension alongside distributional and procedural justice. Yet its empirical operationalization remains underdeveloped, often examined through evaluative, outcome-oriented approaches that obscure the processual and relational dynamics through which recognition and misrecognition take shape in practice. This article addresses this methodological gap by introducing Interpretive Recognition Analysis (IRA), a qualitative framework grounded in interpretivist epistemology for investigating recognition dynamics empirically. Our contribution is twofold. First, drawing on Butler's notion of recognizability, we conceptualize recognition justice as a processual, relational and interpretive phenomenon, foregrounding the prior interpretive and institutional conditions that shape what and who can be seen and acknowledged within energy transitions. Second, we operationalize this conceptualization through IRA, which proceeds through three analytical moves: (i) mapping individual experiences, (ii) (re)constructing interaction dynamics, and (iii) connecting these to the broader institutional and policy context, with an intersectional sensibility informing all three moves. We illustrate IRA's analytical utility through two vignettes from energy housing renovation in the Netherlands. The article contributes to broader energy justice debates by offering IRA as a methodological framework that enables researchers and practitioners to trace recognition dynamics in situ and to identify intervention points attentive to the interpretive and relational conditions through which injustices are (re)produced and sustained in energy transitions.