‘Five Theses on Energy Polities’ is a pre-print chapter from the forthcoming volume ‘Energy Worlds in Experiment’ edited by James Maguire, Laura Watts and Brit Ross Winthereik. The full volume will be published in a print and free online version in Spring 2021. Please send us an email (info@matteringpress.org) if you are interested in reviewing the final volume, or would like to be notified when it is published.
Energy Worlds in Experiment is both a series of experiments in how we write about energy and an exploration of energy infrastructures as experiments. Twenty scholars have collaborated across eight chapters ranging from electricity cables, to energy monitors, to the political potential of energy sites, be they swamps, estuaries, or smart cars. Each chapter has a unique format that demonstrates how energy worlds can be told differently: theses, proposition, interview, story, card game, graphic novel. This collection is a tool for practitioners, students, and scholars to think about energy otherwise; a tool for energy engagement and critique; and an artifact to stimulate energy imaginaries.
The book follows approaches to making visible the social, cultural, material, and environmental relations that make energy infrastructures work as both mundane and innovative edifices in our landscapes. The chapters in this book highlight how energy overflows boundaries –– material and imaginative. As a collaboration, this book shows how experimenting with forms of telling energy stories can offer a hope that, in these climate changing times, we can build flourishing energy futures together.