Global Energy Cultures of Speed and Lightness: Materials, Mobilities and Transnational Power. (September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sheller, Mimi
• Editors: Tyfield, David; Urry, John
• Is Part Of: Theory, culture & society. Volume 31:Number 5(2014:Sep.)
• Page Start: 127
• Page End: 154
• Publication Date: 2014-09
• Subjects: aluminum -- assemblage -- electric grid -- energy -- materiality -- mobility -- speed; Social sciences -- Periodicals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0263276414537909
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-2764

Abstract

Following aluminum as part of a material culture of speed and lightness, this article examines how assemblages of energy and metals connect built environments, ways of life, and ideologies of acceleration. Aluminum can be theorized as a circulatory matrix that forms an energy culture. Through a discussion of speed and social justice, the history of aluminium-based socioecologies reveals how the materiality of energy forms assemblages of objects, infrastructures, and practices. The article then traces the aluminum industry's involvement in the production and distribution of energy itself both at the national scale of power grids and in the emergence of transnational transfers of energy, such as hydropowered smelters in Iceland. Finally, this analysis of deeply embedded energy cultures calls for a transnational approach to the accelerated socioecologies of aluminum production and consumption; and for energy transition theories to pay closer attention to the figured worlds and figuring work of the military-industrial complex.