Paper short abstract:

This paper will sketch out the case study upon which this roundtable discussion will be grounded; the green transition of the Greek island of Ikaria. In thus doing, I will introduce the theme of this roundtable and pose the questions that the discussants will address.

Paper long abstract:

This paper introduces the case study that will be at the center of this roundtable. It shows that the green energy transition underway in the island of Ikaria is based on extractivism, exploitation and processes and practices of uncommoning (i.e. enclosures) of the island's traditional commons -community forests, water sources and structures of self-governance. At the same time, all over rural Greece, as in Ikaria, collective subjects are emerging to resist the usurpation of their ancestral land and local natural resources by multi-corporations. The case of Ikaria appears to be just another case of neoliberal colonisation of the commons, that is going to widen existing inequalities and intensify the environmental consequences of climate crisis, mainly through desertification.

Following, this paper poses the questions that the discussants will address; how can research on the island's commons be part of a project of commoning instead of uncommoning? That is, how can it be a contribution to the counter-movement described by Karl Polanyi? What are the methodological prerequisites of research that does not serve as the handmaiden of neoliberalism by enhancing the rhetoric repository of neoliberal imaginaries that colonise the commons? In an attempt to reflect on methodologies that decolonize the commons, it further asks; how can we produce anthropological critique, which challenges the neoliberal imagination of a green future that leaves no space for local cultures? How can community engaged research contribute in the construction of alternative visions of green transition, which instead place social justice at their core?