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Paper short abstract

Considering the potential for infrastructural projects to generate polarising as well as ambivalent responses, in this paper I explore some of the social and moral complexities emerging from local engagements with renewable energy projects in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

Paper long abstract

Like other windswept regions around Scotland, the Outer Hebrides have become prime sites for proposed renewable energy infrastructure. In recent decades, wind energy projects have taken on a range of forms in this region, with multinational and foreign-owned commercial projects being developed alongside community-owned ones. However, recent developments in UK government strategy and net zero targets have accelerated plans to develop the energy sector in the region, leading to the rapid proliferation of proposals for industrial-scale wind power projects that prioritise multinational and foreign-owned ventures, and risk sidelining the budding and increasingly vital community energy sector. In a mostly rural archipelago known for its significant scenic, environmental, archaeological, and socio-cultural heritage – but threatened by depopulation, economic fragility, and limited job opportunities – the prospect of exponential growth in wind power projects has garnered mixed reactions. As I heard often during my fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides, this has become ‘an emotional topic’.

Foregrounding the potential for infrastructural projects to generate polarising as well as ambivalent responses, in this paper I explore some of the social and moral complexities emerging from local engagements with renewable energy projects in the Outer Hebrides. Considering local reactions to externally proposed projects, as well as islanders’ role in establishing community-owned energy infrastructures, I suggest the importance of foregrounding not only conflicting views, but also ambivalence and ambiguity. Doing so while considering perceptions of local pasts also reveals how certain histories shape visions of possible futures in rapidly changing landscapes of energy generation.