A post-fossil fuel transition experiment: Exploring cultural dimensions from a practice-theoretical perspective

Societies must rapidly abandon the use of fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of climate change. This paper examines the cultural dynamics of the energy transition by focusing on a post-fossil fuel experiment in an international artist and researcher residency. The aims of the experiment were to explore how fossil fuels currently determine human lives and to imagine and build pathways forward. The six-year ethnographic case study was analysed from the perspective of practice theory, shedding light on how changes in the material arrangements of energy, food and transportation reconfigure meanings and competences. These transformations were found to have inspiring as well as unfortunate, even threatening aspects that need to be taken into account in transition design and governance.