Paper short abstract:

Framed in debates in the emerging field of “energopower”, this paper discusses interdisciplinary energy research in western Thessaly, Greece, presenting moments of fruitful (mis)communication and instances when partners become subjects and subjects become collaborators.

Paper long abstract:

The EU and Greek government herald renewable energy as the saviour of the state at a time of fiscal destitution. Seen as a way for the state to repay extortionate debts and decrease national deficit, photovoltaic (solar) and wind developments in Greece have attracted much attention from international business prospectors. But the cladding of sustainability associated with these 'clean', 'green' technologies belie the impact on local people who turn over agricultural land to multinational energy companies on long-term contracts. Energy is a powerful tool at the forefront of neo-imperial politics and research at this frontier reveals how local people believe that national sovereignty is negated in the desperate scramble for renewable resources instigated by the United States and northern Europe. Due to the multiple scales of business, governance and specialist knowledge involved, research at emergent intersections of society and technology must be an interdisciplinary project.

What Dominic Boyer (2014:324) terms "energopower" - the complex power games played by western states and multinational corporations in the name of energy - has consequences at all levels of society and politics, from the EU and nation-state to local livelihoods. Advocating ethnography as a method to capture these complex scaled interactions, since 2011 I have worked with engineers, physicists, geographers, political scientists, government ministers, business executives and local farmers and technicians to explore the emerging world of new socio-technical assemblages in western Thessaly, Greece. This paper will discuss interdisciplinary energy research, presenting moments of fruitful (mis)communication and instances when partners become subjects and subjects become collaborators.