The world is a conundrum. The bulk of the energy we use deliberately – fossil fuels – causes harm at every scale from the neighborhood to the planet. Almost harmless forms of energy – sun, wind, waves, and other renewables – lie all around us, virtually untapped. Many politicians and activists recognize the need to switch from the former to the latter. But, by and large, we are not switching. Why? The answers have to do with political and economic obstacles – and also with the nature of energy itself and with energy transitions from one form to another. We will explore those past transitions – involving slavery, coal, oil, and nuclear power. And, regarding the present, we will consider incipient forms of energy democracy and justice. Robust readings will draw from anthropology, geography, history, natural history, and political criticism.
About Professor Hughes
I work as a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey (United States). In research and teaching, I explore ways in which people exploit each other while exploiting nature, environments, and, indeed, the entire biosphere. I have written history and ethnography on topics as diverse as settler colonialism, racism, slavery, land reform, climate change, oil, and renewable energy – in Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. My current work takes me to southern Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar, an energy-rich blow zone. Provisionally entitled Utopia of Wind: Politics after Fossil Fuels, the project will reassess property, aesthetics, biodiversity, work, and other Left values in light of the transition towards clean energy. Throughout, I have sought to dismantle associations taken for granted: those between land and freedom, between whiteness and nature, and between oil and progress.