Situated Knowledge and Energy Transformations: A Socio-Anthropological Exploration

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses on San Pietro island case study and uses an ethnographic, micro and qualitative approach. San Pietro island is facing Sulcis, the southwestern corner of the Sardinia, a region of coal-mining and industrial vocation currently involved in a challenging energy transition. San Pietro local residents claim their ethnic difference as descendants of the eighteenth century settlers from Liguria. Today, contrary to Sulcis, the island benefits from several EU grants aiming to improve energy efficiency and renewables. I explore if the orientation of the community towards a shared idea of its past and future could be a determining factor in triggering a positive and stable tipping point towards decarbonization. I use energyscape framework to understand the spatial dimension and ethnography to explore local imaginaries on renewables as context for examination of social agency. I find that the attempt at deep transformations driven by policy plans may experience implementation difficulties, since local residents’ futures and horizons do not align to the timescales, worldviews on humans or technology, or many other dimensions and narratives arriving “from outside” the community.