Paper long abstract:

Starting from the assumption that, as all other living systems, human bodies, cultural and social systems (etc.) can be considered energy converters in their metabolic interaction with the Environment, in our intervention we attempt to stress the inextricable links between the control of non-human energy and cultural dynamics (drawing from a wide anthropological, historical and sociological literature). In doing that, we chiefly consider long term dynamics, paying a pivotal attention to the shift toward more and more sophisticated forms of extra-human energy domestication, considered at the same time as the result of historic contingencies and as an essential variable in explaining changing patterns of power dissimmetries. An energy revolution (i.e. the domestication of fire), has strongly contributed to the emergency of biological conditions for the development of human culture and its symbols, including Energy itself. Another energy shift, the spread of electricity, has produced an anthropological revolution bringing us to live in a kind of "second nature", carachterized by an increasing expertification of governamentality and by a paradoxical naturalization of socio-technical systems and their increasing mimicry in laymen daily life experience.