To date, a major portion of sustainability transition research has relied on retrospective methods to generate encompassing macro-level views of transitions. However, such methods may have considerable impacts on the insights generated in the study of intermediation, action and agency by actors on the micro-level of transitions. In this article, we compare retrospective interviews and real-time ethnography to understand how they portray micro-level transition processes and intermediation. The empirical context of our study is energy retrofitting, which we use to illustrate three structural and three process aspects that distinguish the findings from retrospective interviewing and real-time ethnography. Ethnographic methods can provide significant new detail on the uncertainty and complexity of micro-level transition processes while interviews facilitate cross-case comparison and understanding of commonalities in micro-level transition intermediation processes better.

迄今为止，可持续性转型研究的主要部分依靠回顾性方法来生成涵盖宏观层面的转型观点。但是，这样的方法可能会对参与者在微观过渡阶段对中介，行动和代理的研究产生的见解产生重大影响。在本文中，我们将回顾性访谈与实时民族志进行比较，以了解它们如何描绘微观过渡过程和中介。我们研究的经验背景是能源改造，我们用它来说明三个结构和三个过程方面，这些方面将调查结果与回顾性访谈和实时人种志区别开来。