Events by the Energy Anthropology Network

FUTURE EVENTS

Workshop announcement and call for participants

Energy Anthropology Network – Environment and Anthropology Network – Humans and Other Living Beings
19-21 May, 2025 — Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

How are humans and other living or nonliving beings, from frontline or vulnerable communities, experts and nation states to endangered and invasive species or extinct glaciers responding to the multifaceted environmental and ecological calamities facing our planet? How are these communities organizing the possibilities of survival, transformation, resistance, or flourishing? This workshop, organized by three EASA networks – Energy Anthropology, Humans and Other Living Beings, and EnviroAnt – invites proposals that explore the interconnectedness of energy systems and infrastructures, human and nonhuman agencies, and environmental dynamics. We invite contributions that engage with the entanglements of infrastructures, the metabolic flows they shape, and their impacts on both human and nonhuman lifeways in the context of the Anthropocene.

In addition to creative formats, the workshop will feature field visits offering a grounded exploration of Venice’s intricate energy flows and ecological dynamics. We will travel to places such as the barene, an endangered ecological system vital for protecting Venice from tides, and the MOSE, a system of mobile barriers designed to manage flooding in the city. These visits will examine the entanglements of power dynamics, non-human adaptations, and their long-term impacts on the lagoon’s metabolic balance. We also have an exciting list of confirmed participants: Anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer (Rice University), whose work includes the design of the world’s first glacier memorial, will join the workshop to contribute their insights. Jamie Cross (University of Glasgow) will also join the workshop and lead a field session on humidity and mold in Venice.

While traditional papers are most welcome, we especially encourage proposals for sessions and activities that embrace experimentation and reflect the interconnected themes of the workshop. Below is a list of possible formats to inspire your proposals:

This is not an exhaustive list: Please feel free to suggest other activities or contributions.

For all of these, please provide a 250-word abstract/summary of your proposed contribution, including title, name of author(s)/performers/facilitators, institutional affiliation, and email address. Please also include any technical equipment or materials that you would need for your proposed contribution.

Limited funds will be available to support the attendance of early career researchers and scholars from the Global South. A portion of the funds are set aside for supporting sustainable travel choices.

Please send all contributions to by Friday the 21st of February.
Successful applicants will be notified by the end of February.

Feel free to reach out to any of the networks with questions.

Organizing committee
Valentina Bonifacio, Umberto Cao, Cormac Cleary, Pauline Destree, Raghnild Freng Dale, Zeynep Oguz, Elena Stecca, Amelia Veitch.

 

PAST EVENTS

Energies and technologies futures, EAN/FAN joint workshop
20-21 June 2019, Lyon

For over a century, predictions about the future have been dominated by technological fantasies, either with utopian or dystopian outcomes. Driven increasingly by responses to the causes and effects of climate change, popular political future imaginaries span elitist extraplanetary survivalism and back-to-the-land minimalism. Anthropologists have emphasised the social and material forms of technology, and the need to analyse and account for visions of the future and attend to socio-material relations between technologies, humans and other living beings in a shared environment.

Read more on the conference website here: https://etechfutures.sciencesconf.org/

A launch event at the Energy Impacts conference in Bergen on Feb 28 2017 took the form of a roundtable panel involving network organisers and founder members of the network.

Simone Abram and Brit Ross Winthereik (ITU Copenhagen) held a Wenner-Gren funded workshop in Durham in 2016 entitled Electrifying Anthropology. This event consolidated a network of anthropologists working on electricity issues. An edited volume is to be published during 2017 (MIT press).
You can read the full report herePDF . Furthermore, visit this link to see another output from EAN and its associated acitvities.

The energy transition: an anti-politics machine? ASA16 Panel 07
5 July 2016, Durham (UK)
URL: nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4399
Convenors: Nathalie Ortar (ENTPE) and Tristan Loloum (University of Durham)

Energy citizenships and prospects for low carbon democracy. ASA16 Panel 06
7 July 2016, Durham (UK)
URL: nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4057
Convenor: Ben Campbell (Durham University)

Power legacies, energy futures: governmentalities along the grid. EASA2016 Panel 107
22 July 2016, Milan (Italy)
URL: nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4278
Convenors: Nathalie Ortar (ENTPE) and Tristan Loloum (University of Durham)