Collective experiences, energy and sustainability in North America? Between myths and reality: the case of Caroline Town

Abstract

Current discourses on the exploitation of energy sources, sustainability, and the possibility to keep increasing production and growth in global advanced capitalism are embedded within the neoliberal geopolitics of the energy-military-industrial-complex and generate social conflicts around the dominant dynamics of capitalist exploitation of human and environmental energy resources.
Exploring this issue, in this article, I report the experience of ‘Energy Independent Caroline Town’ as the pilot case of a broader research project of 18 month between Calabria (Italy) and US. Trying to understand critical aspects, reasons and self-narrations for defining as a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’ a local energy transition initiative, I looked at this experiment, which is considered in literature and by most of the participants as a case of successful communitarian energy transition, bringing attention to the participation of inhabitants in energy sustainable local plans.
Thus, considering participation as the key dimension for successful initiatives of local energy transition, the main questions that organize the work are: ‘who decides’ in local energy policy, and can ‘the local’ decide its own energy independency’? What can enable the local to decide its own energy autonomy and so, like little David(s), try to fight, and even break free of, giant Goliath(s)?