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Contribution short abstract

Anthropology resists simple answers and struggles for a public voice within neoliberal and neo-fascist systems. Ethnography from family-run firms shows how energy futures are negotiated through forms of care and commitment, opening spaces for re-politicising energy and practicing situated dissent.

Contribution long abstract

The first answer I would instinctively give is that anthropology cannot truly have a public voice as long as we remain fully inside neoliberal or neo-fascist systems. Anthropology is a discipline that resists simple, reassuring answers. It insists on complexity and contradiction. For this reason, the only way anthropology can meaningfully influence political decisions—as a science of complexity—is if the political system, and the dominant worldview more broadly, are willing to change. Otherwise, the space left to anthropological intervention remains marginal, confined to forms of partial and fragile resistance. In a more pessimistic register, one might even say that it often takes a profound systemic failure before alternative ways of seeing and organising the world can become visible.

That said, ethnography also allows us to identify cracks within dominant systems. Drawing on my research in family-run manufacturing firms in Northern Italy, I observe that decisions about a more sustainable future are not reduced to compliance with indicators, audits, and optimisation logics requested by bureaucratic commitments. Calculations often intersect with affective commitments, relationships, and the long-term survival of the firm. All this generate situated ways of engaging with sustainability that resist both techno-solutionism and narratives of inevitable collapse.

These practices show how sustainable futures are already negotiated without grand narratives. Anthropology can re-politicise energy discourse by bringing into public debates how different futures are being lived and imagined within the present, and by asking whether it, too, must experiment with more situated forms of dissent within their institutions.

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Contribution short abstract

Drawing on four years of energy research in India, Australia and Germany, this contribution brings to the roundtable aspects of interdisciplinary and comparative work. We argue that this advances discussions, broadens perspectives and allows to disseminate research results beyond the ivory tower.

Contribution long abstract

As an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers, we analysed the current shift to renewable energy, dominated by globalised energy companies building large-scale wind and solar plants. Discussing the consequences and possibilities of this shift in India, Germany, and Australia, we show how centralised models of energy provision are maintained and chart their impacts in terms of energy geography, social stratification, and socio-ecological appropriation. We argue that public provision should be repurposed for distributed renewables, social equity in affected regions, and wider social benefit. Our output in form of books, articles, and popular media technically allows policymakers as well as students and researchers from various fields to better understand the role played by state regulation, financial incentives, and public infrastructure for corporate renewables. Our interdisciplinary output provides fertile building ground for research in – and application of – future energy transitions. In practice, however, we would argue that our radio features, cross-national online conferences, and continuous interaction in the respective fields are more likely to generate some form of impact.

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Contribution short abstract

Using ethnographies of energy justice in Central Asia and Canada, I argue for consciously crafting the possible. Instead of chosing either outright resistance to fossil fascism, or reform within established energy systems, I argue for maximizing the craft of what is possible.

Contribution long abstract

This contribution draws on ethnographies of energy justice in Central Asia and Canada, to argue for a conscious strategy of crafting the possible. Rather than following the lines of an often fraught division between advocates of either pushing for outright resistance to fossil fascism, or reform within established energy systems, I argue for maximizing the craft of assessing what is possible. I use two examples to illustrate this necessary breadth in different socio-political contexts.

First, the water allocation of major rivers in Central Asia is a central source of conflict between upriver and downriver republics, opposing key interests in hydropower and irrigation. Working on energy provision and big dam building in the region, I discuss public art interventions, as well as academia itself, as formats that can safely depoliticize enough, for citizens to engage with energy justice in authoritarian contexts.

The second case uses the collaborative ethnographic study of environmental justice questions around tidal energy innovations in Canada. I here discuss a much more directly political tool box, e.g. design coast-to-coast learning platforms on experimental blue energy technologies, that can bypass, but also interact with policy-makers and other ‚experts‘.

One major question to explore in each case is: who are potential allies in seeking energy and climate justice? What -often uneasy- alliances can we join, or help to forge? As a broader question: how do we avoid preaching to the converted on the one hand, and maintain our commitment to ‚safe enough‘ action with research partners, on the other?

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Contribution short abstract

In 2022, Russia cut gas to Europe has exposed France’s energy vulnerabilities. The government reaffirmed nuclear power’s role and “Energy sovereignty,” a notion which overlooks local solutions and extractivism’s social/environmental costs. How can anthropology can re-politicise this debate?

Contribution long abstract

In February 2022, Russia reduced or halted gas supplies to Europe, exposing vulnerabilities in energy security. France, though less affected due to its higher energy independence, still faced price volatility and uncertainties. The crisis also revealed issues with its ageing nuclear fleet, as nearly half of its reactors were offline for repairs. In response, France established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the loss of energy sovereignty and reaffirm nuclear power’s central role, echoing President Macron’s 2020 declaration that nuclear energy was key to France’s “economic and ecological” future. However, critics argue that simply replacing fossil fuels with nuclear or renewable energy without addressing demand fails to reduce overall electricity consumption.

The concept of “energy sovereignty” in France, rooted in Gaullist ideology, emphasizes independence in energy production and control over its distribution. Historically, this notion has been tied to colonial relationships and international authority, often overlooking the socio-technical systems that shape energy use. Energy policy is not just about governance but also about governmentality—the ways knowledge and power influence energy practices and infrastructure.

Energy infrastructures, while politically powerful, are often perceived as neutral, despite their role in shaping societies and cultures. The push for electrification and new technologies risks reinforcing dependence on critical minerals and perpetuating extractivism, with significant social and environmental costs often outsourced to marginalized communities.

The presentation aims to highlight how anthropology can re-politicise this debate through a better understanding of the underlying issues of “energy sovereignty” political, social, and economic contexts.

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Contribution short abstract

This presentation examines the emergence of a Turkish-built floating power plant in Ghana, analyzing how such inventive infrastructure shapes South-South relations and embodies broader imaginations of energy futures.

Contribution long abstract

Floating Power considers the role of energy production on an international scale, challenging the idea that new infrastructures wholly replace older sources of energy. Shifting the discussion from energy transition to energy accumulation, it engages with a range of electricity producers, including hydroelectric, heavy fuel oil, natural gas, and solar power plants, noting their intersections as societies work to expand their supply rather than focus on a single source. It uses the Ayşegül Sultan, a Turkish-built floating power plant in Ghana, as a prime example and vehicle for exploring how state and corporate intervention shape energy technologies as nations strive for infrastructural expansion. Floating Power challenges the linear thinking and substitutive logic of mainstream energy discourse, instead showing how various power sources often expand and grow symbiotically.