Paper short abstract:

Starting from anthropological fieldwork, the paper shows the specificity of the coal transition in Poland, around the Turów mining and power complex, emphasizing that this process is not only an ecological changes for the environment, but also a social transformation towards a more just future.

Paper long abstract:

We are living in the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000), a new geological era in which human activities are affecting climate, ecosystems and the environment like never before. Increased extraction of natural resources, high CO2 and fossil gas emissions, overheating of the planet (Eriksen 2021), disturbed ecosystems and biodiversity loss are associated with large-scale economic and industrial development. Although the world has reached some consensus on the need to implement decarbonization policies and develop low-carbon infrastructure the process is advancing in different ways in different parts of the world (Loloum, Abram, Ortar 2021). The global and top-down scales of these visions miss in-depth local sociocultural understanding and local communities' own participation. Therefore, the paper emphasizes the experiential and transrelational dimensions of the coal transition (Iovino, Oppermann 2014), while problematizing the category of environmental justice as non-obvious, dependent on the perspectives adopted and the position taken in the networked conceptualized relationships, contexts and conditions of the European Green Deal policy and energy transition. Is it fair? To whom? Starting from anthropological fieldwork, the paper shows contextual specificity of the coal transition in Poland, around the mininig and power complex Turów, emphasizing that transformation is not only a network of infrastructure and technology changes for the environment, but also a social transformation towards a more just world and its future (Boyer, Howes 2019).

Paper short abstract:

This ethnographic paper explores the recent transition from gas to renewables in the province of Groningen. It describes locals’ changing attitudes to renewables and highlights their experiences of renewable energy production in the province akin to extractivism that relies on fossil fuels.

Paper long abstract:

The province of Groningen in the Netherlands has been extracted for energy production for centuries. This paper explores the fossil fuel journey from peat to gas, and traces the ongoing energy transition in the province and its sociocultural impacts. Earthquakes induced by conventional natural gas extraction have ushered in a community of resistance against gas extraction, local environmentalism, and a strong desire for renewables. However, once the transition away from gas and toward renewables became a reality, Groningers experienced it as just another incarnation of the centuries-old exploitation of their lands.

This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the recent transition from gas to renewables in the province of Groningen. It describes locals’ changing attitudes to renewables and highlights their experiences of renewable energy production in the province as similar to extractivism that relies on fossil fuels. Moreover, it illustrates how different actors envision and push for different avenues toward a fossil fuel-free future. Through this ethnographic exploration, the paper touches on ideas and experiences of not only energy production and transition but also ideas of government, nation, and political subjectivity. The paper enhances our understanding of contemporary power, energy justice, and how people imagine energy futures.

Paper short abstract:

In the north of Portugal, poetic improvisers fix new terms for an old performative tradition, namely by giving voice to supra-localist causes and identifications, when contesting the open-pit exploration of lithium in an area where energy production has been big business for almost a century.

Paper long abstract:

A few counties in the extreme north stand out in the production of energy in Portugal, due to a network of hydroelectric dams and - more recently - wind turbines deployed over the hills or at the sea. For a century now, large-scale energy production has damaged clean rivers and greatly transformed the climate and landscape. Today is the existence of important lithium deposits that mostly interests international mining companies and national politicians. Locally, the defense of the commons around one of the most remarkable mountains, where lithium is abundant and its open-air exploitation feared, triggered demonstrations unprecedented in the region. Such mobilizations have been headed by musicians and singers/poetic improvisers ("cantadores ao desafio"), with whom I have been doing fieldwork for a while, popular performers able to both fix new terms for an old tradition and give voice to unheard supra-localist causes and identifications.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation looks at the promises and problems associated with the development of geothermal energy resources in remote rural areas of Kenya and Iceland

Paper long abstract:

The extraction of geothermal resources is becoming an important source of energy in many parts of the world. Because it is considered environmentally friendly and renewable, the development of geothermal energy is widely supported by governments and donors. Like many other renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro), the exploration of geothermal fields is pushing energy frontiers into rural areas where - especially in the global South - the land rights of local users (often commons) are poorly defined. Apart from low-cost and reliable base-load energy, geothermal also promises economic incentives through direct use and - more generally - the development of infrastructure in remote rural regions. However, it is not without negative impacts on the environment and can severely affect local livelihoods. It can therefore be seen as a “harm industry” (Benson & Kirsch, 2010) for local communities, which meets with criticism and sometimes resistance. This presentation is based on a long-term interdisciplinary project of social anthropology and economic geography on the topic of energy futures. It seeks to understand the political ecology of geothermal resource extraction and its impact on local communities. Building on fieldwork in Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Iceland, it analyses the development plans and visions, the power relations and institutions that shape negotiations between local, national and international actors and interests.

Paper short abstract:

In the Central German Mining District, phasing-down coal shall also transform this region in Eastern Germany from post-industrial and post-socialist to post-carbon. The down-scaling of coal is compensated not only with the up-scaling of new forms of energy but calls for a post-carbon society.

Paper long abstract:

As Germany intends carbon neutrality by 2045, the gradual implementation of the nation’s coal (phase-out will provide mounting challenges for the Central German Mining District. Quitting coal shall bring climate justice but must not endanger energy security, economic stability, and social peace in the remaining German coal districts. Climate justice, energy transition, and the finite nature of fossil resources are the driving forces behind this process labelled as Strukturwandel, structural change, indicating that something more significant than a pure economic transformation is intended. The regionally established interplay of labour, economy, and energy is changing. Pillars of society will be re-negotiated, modified, or improved.

This paper (based on PhD fieldwork, 2019-2021) investigates how different actors in the Central German Mining District try to keep pace with the making of post-carbon futures. Some fear de-industrialisation and loss, while others try to transform this mining district into a model region for sustainable growth. This transformation provokes anticipation, desire, hope, hesitation, scepticism, refusal, and indifference. This energy transition, I argue, is full of gaps: Some people, often closely aligned with coal, cannot keep pace with new definitions of the good life. Sometimes the narratives of a proud industrial past and a sustainable future get stuck in a present that is not yet and no more. Yet sometimes, these gaps appear as a creative space for empowering energy politics. This project aims to translate the multiple emic experiences of gaps into an anthropological way of understanding energy transitions.