Peripheries – Conflicts – Transformations: Contested Geographies of Energy

The geographies of energy systems – as well their transformations – are uneven and contested. However, these contestations always entail possibilities for change: the transition towards more environmentally and socially just, sustainable and democratic energy systems. This article uses peripheries, conflicts and transformations as emblematic issue for illustrating the various contestations as well as emancipatory potentials of energy infrastructures which occur on the global, national, regional and local scale. Energy peripheries point to the multi-fold forms of uneven development in relation to energy. The term ‘energy conflicts’ highlights the contested character of such energy peripheries. Finally, energy transformations could provide new, more progressive, futures of energy supply and consumption which address the challenges of peripheries and conflicts. Based on a very brief overview of the existing literature on energy geography we plea for interlinked perspectives following the issues of energy peripheries, conflicts and transformations. These perspectives enable us to develop a critical geography of the uneven character of energy systems as well as of the possibilities to change them.