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In Quebec a number of energy projects face local opposition. Social acceptability is increasingly put forward by private or public authorities as an answer to these conflicts. The notion is still vague, however, and open to diverse interpretations. In this article, we propose a definition and an analysis grid in which social acceptability is considered as part of a territorialization process of major energy projects that needs to fit in with other local projects. The structuring of such a process would need to be considered at three different levels: a political assessment process of a sociotechnical project (micro level) where plural actors, engaged at several scales, interact and negotiate agreements. These are then (meso level) institutionalized through rules considered as legitimate since they are coherent with the vision which the concerned actors have of their territory and the development model they have chosen (macro). The social dynamics observed regarding wind energy siting in an eastern region of Quebec, namely Gaspésie, serves to illustrate this proposition. To conclude, we discuss the limits and resistances to the adoption of such a definition of social acceptability which privileges bottom up territorial dynamics that reveal the dynamic, plural, and sometimes conflictual, composition of local communities.