Just transition to low carbon economies

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

The aim of this module is to present students with the concept of just transition to low carbon economies and to critically discuss different cases of transition. We will deal with the following processes: phasing out coal in vulnerable regions, renewable energy project – their positives and downsides, electric mobility – its societal distribution – and energy poverty. The main conceptual apparatus that will be proposed to frame our discussions are different types of justice: distributional, procedural, justice as recognition, epistemic justice. We will discuss different visions of energy futures and socio-technical imaginaries as institutionalized and embedding transition processes in different contexts.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

It is required that participants in this course have a good command of English language – both in speaking and reading – as many readings will be assigned for each class.

Syllabus

Week 1:                      Introduction: climate change, energy transition and social justice

• Presentation of the syllabus
• Discussion with students about their associations with different concepts: energy justice, environmental justice, just transition, renewable energy sources (RES), autonomous driving/vehicles

 

Week 2:                      Concepts: different dimensions of energy justice

• Discussion with students about different dimensions of energy justice: distributional justice, procedural justice, justice as recognition, epistemic justice
• Students’ critic of this concept: is it too narrow or too broad? Can energy justice mean something else for different people?
• Energy cultures and social practice theory: Harold Wilhite developed a new way of understanding energy sustainability through social practice theory. Wilhite highlighted that our habits with regard to cooking technologies, lighting strategies, or transportation can be valued differently and practiced in multiple and varied ways.
• Discussion with students about the concept of energy cultures: why should we distinguish between different energy cultures? In what kind of energy culture do you participate? Are you observing changes in the energy culture in your own community?

Week 3:                      From environmental justice to climate justice

• Discussion with students about the concept of environmental justice: what is in the concept for us/anthropologists/environmental scientists/activists? Students’ critic of the concept
• Climate justice and its movement(s), watching a selected video, discussion in the class about the critic of oil capitalism/oil neoliberalism

Week 4:                      Marxist critic of capital-nature relations

• Discussion in the class about the historical perspective on the material/environmental history of capitalism: does nature exist outside of the capital? Is the Marxist frame sufficient to understand all contemporary environmental problems?
• Discussion in the class: from Anthropocene to Capitalocene: what do we gain from this shift of perspectives?

Week 5:                      Phasing out coal – visions and vulnerabilities (an invited guest?)

• Discussion in the class about different legacies of coal: what is the legacy of coal in your country? Do you know any local histories of mining communities?
• Discussion about the political implications of carbon-based economies based on the text by Tim Mitchell: how does the materiality of various energy sources enable different types of politics? What politics/democracy could be possible without carbon?

Week 6:                      Energy humanities and the concept of Energopower

• Discussion in the class about the contribution of anthropology to energy studies: what do we need the concept of energypower for?

Week 7:                      Renewable energy sources – green and black renewables

• Discussion in the class about the main thesis of Franquesa’s book: how to study wind projects ethnographically? What do ethnographies of energy projects reveal to us?
• Discussion in the class about renewable energy sources: “green” and “black” renewables/wind – what do we gain with this distinction for a better understanding of contemporary energy and climate politics?

Week 8:                      Renewable energy sources – wind projects in Mexico

• Discussion in the class: how are the projects in Mexico different from the ones in Catalonia described by Jaume Franquesa?
• Discussion in the class about energy futures: what futures do we envision? What energy futures do we want?

Week 9:                      Energy poverty – how to measure and how to address it

Week 10:         The aesthetics of petro-cultures and petro-masculinities

• Discussion in the class about the concents “petrocultures” and “petro-masculinities” with a reference back to the concept of energy cultures: what are the main characteristics? What is the main critic of petro-? What are the easthetics of renewable-cultures?
• Eco-modernist masculinities: a new man for the new era?

Week 11:                     Electric mobility – for whom?

• Discussion in the class about the various ways in which electric mobility enters our transportation practices?
• E-scooters: is this an option for you?

Week 12:         Autonomous vehicles – a seductive vision of a robot taxi and other promises of artificial intelligence

 

Week 13:         Students’ presentations

 

Week 14:         Students’ presentations

 

Week 15:         Students’ presentations

Reading list

1. J. Heffron, D. McCauley, The concept of energy justice across the disciplines, Energy Policy 105 (2017) 658–667, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.018.
2. Ramazan, S., Voyvoda, E., Lacey-Barnacle, M., Karababa, E., Topal, C., Islambay, D., Energy justice - a social sciences and humanities cross-cutting theme report., Cambridge: Shape Energy (2017). https://shapeenergy.eu/ (accessed January 29, 2020).
3. High, Mette M. and Jessica M. Smith. 2019. Energy and Ethics? Special Issues of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 25(S1)
4. Cohen, B. and G. Ottinger. 2011. “Introduction: Environmental Justice and the Transformation of Science and Engineering”, in: Cohen, B. and G. Ottinger (eds) Technoscience and Environmental Justice. MIT Press.
5. Kim Fortun “Afterword: Working Faultlines” ibidem.
6. Climate Gangsters vs. Climate Justice https://www.iicat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Greenhouse-Gangsters-vs-Climate-Justice-1999.pdf
7. Bali Principles of Climate Justice, 29 August 2002 https://www.iicat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Bali-Princioples-of-Climate-Justice.pdf
8. Andreas Malm (2016) Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Verso: London, New York. (selections in the class folder)
9. Jason W. Moore (2015) Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, Verso: London, New York. (selections in the class folder)
10. Magdalena Kuchler, Gavin Bridge (2018) Down the black hole: Sustaining national socio-technical imaginaries of coal in Poland, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 41, 2018. Pages 136-147.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.04.014.

11. Mitchell, T. 2011. Carbon democracy: political power in the age of oil. Verso: London, New York. “Introduction” and “Chapter 1” or Carbon Democracy in Economy and Society https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/tm2421/files/2018/01/Carbon-Democracy.pdf

12. Boyer, D. (2014) Energopower: An Introduction, Anthropological Quarterly , Spring 2014, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Spring 2014), pp. 309-333

13. “Introduction” from Energy Humanities by D. Boyer and I. Szeman, 2017, John Hopkins University Press.
14. Jaume Bartolome Franquesa (2018) Power Struggles: Dignity, Value, and the Renewable Energy Frontier in Spain. Indiana University Press. Chapter 6 “Accessing Wind”
15. Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene, Dominic Boyer, Duke University Press. Chapter 2 “La Ventosa”. Energopolitics is one half of the duograph Wind and Power in the Anthropocene, along with Ecologics.
16. Sareen, S., Thomson, H., Herrero, S. T., Gouveia, J. P., Lippert, P. Lis, A. (2020) “European energy poverty metrics: Scales, prospects and limits” Global Transitions 2(2020): 26-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glt.2020.01.003
17. Energy Poverty in the EU https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/policy-brief/european-energy-poverty.pdf
18. Wenzel, Jennifer(2006) 'Petro-magic-realism: toward a political ecology of Nigerian literature', Postcolonial Studies, 9: 4, 449 — 464, To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13688790600993263
19. Daggett, C. N. (2018). Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 030582981877581. doi:10.1177/0305829818775817