
Do otimismo da vontade às possibilidades em curso
Feb 19, 2021 | Chapters, Publications

Do otimismo da vontade às possibilidades em curso [From the optimism of the will to the ongoing possibilities]
- João Carlos Louçã
- Quando a História Acelera. Resistência, movimentos sociais e o lugar do futuro [When History Accelerates. Resistance, social movements, and the place of the future]
- João Carlos Louçã e Paula Godinho (Orgs.)
- 2021
- Lisbon: Instituto de História Contemporânea | Colecção E-IHC
- Language: Portuguese
- ISBN: 978-989-8956-231
- 21-37 p.
Excerpt:
Procurar interpretar o tempo que há de vir com as ferramentas da Antropologia, foi o objetivo de um trabalho nos Pirenéus de Aragão. Nele indaguei algumas das redes que produziam e trocavam bens e serviços, ocupavam espaços e territórios deixados livres pelo mercado, criavam novas localidades, afinal exemplos de alternativas possíveis ao capitalismo tardio em que vivemos. O ponto de partida foi a ideia de crise, sobretudo aquela que a partir de 2008, impôs a austeridade seletiva para grande parte do mundo. Nesse percurso, procurei argumentos para esconjurar o pessimismo das crises recorrentes e da crise que continua à espreita, intensificada pela degradação ambiental e climática, através dos exemplos de resistência da classe que vive do seu trabalho -a possibilidade estreita que nos afasta da barbárie. Sem grandes contemplações, o mundo que se fez global no nosso tempo de vida, não parece oferecer muitas alternativas à esperança de dias melhores.A política afunilou-se na gestão do possível, na melhor das hipóteses em alternância, não de modelos alternativos para a sociedade e os seus sentidos comuns, mas das equipas que gerem a escassez de recursos no paradoxo da maior montanha de riqueza acumulada que o planeta jamais viu. As ideologias, dadas como mortas e enterradas a partir de 1989, com a queda do muro de Berlim e o consequente triunfo do capitalismo sobre os países de influência soviética, são terreno ainda fértil para encarar o futuro e encontrar os caminhos que podemos ainda percorrer.
About the book:
Nesta obra, vários autores foram convidados a olhar para momentos do tempo em que, como escreveu Galeano, chove de baixo para cima. A partir de várias formações disciplinares, os investigadores que responderam ao repto olham para o tempo comum, para o dia anterior, para as rotinas que corroem, mas que também permitem sobreviver, para os fluxos de gente que se movimenta à procura de uma vida melhor, para a conquista da cidade e do espaço de reconhecimento, para as margens da vida, com as pequenas histórias das personagens secundárias, dos sobreviventes, dos subversivos, dos indígenas, daqueles que em narrativa estranha são entendidos como falhados, incompletos, fadados ao fracasso, irrelevantes. Conjugar o tempo longo, através da memória, do arquivo, da fotografia e da literatura, é um exercício a partir de um dado presente, num tempo de pandemia em que a duração parece ter coagulado. Contudo, convém retirar o tempo forte do baú, e escapar das debilidades presentistas do fim da história, do presente contínuo em que tudo parece confundir-se. A tanto nos propusemos, com esta obra destinada a interrogar os momentos de aceleração da história, os que os precedem e o lastro num tempo longo.
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Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and
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Detalhes do Evento
Research seminar that seeks to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
Mind the Gap III:
Unearthing Petromodernity: Oil Studies in the Anthropocene
Online Research Seminar
The rise of fossil fuels has been central to the political, economic, cultural, and material transformations of the past two centuries, yet the forms of power, knowledge, and life enabled by carbon energy often remain analytically invisible. As we confront the converging crises of the Anthropocene, the need to rethink the centrality of fossil fuels to modern life has never been more urgent.
At a moment when toxic landscapes, resource frontiers, and environmental inequality reveal the uneven geographies of fossil modernity, the humanities and social sciences are reorienting analytical attention toward the energetic foundations of modern life. From pipelines and refineries to plastics and everyday petrochemical products, the material properties of oil have fundamentally shaped modern infrastructures and forms of life. What forms of political and social power are created through fossil fuel industries? How have fossil fuels shaped modern societies, their economic models, governmental regimes, everyday lives? How have they contributed to uneven global geographies rooted in colonialism and capitalism? What kinds of transitions to post-carbon futures are possible?
Bringing together approaches from history, anthropology, political ecology, and geography, we seek to expand the field of oil studies beyond established narratives, geographies, and disciplinary boundaries, amplifying perspectives from the Global South and other sites of extraction and resistance.
📎 Download full programme (PDF)
Programme:
Every fortnight we will meet online to discuss an article or book chapter circulated in advance. The sessions will start with a 20–30 minute presentation, followed by discussion. The sessions will take place on Mondays at 2PM.
We will explore key concepts such as petro-culture, carbon democracy, extractivism, fossil capital, energy regimes, and transition imaginaries, examining how energy dependence shapes modern subjectivities, infrastructures, economies, and ecological futures. The texts will be shared with participants in advance.
Everyone is welcome.
To register, please fill out the online form. After registering you will receive the readings and access information ahead of each session.
For more information, please write to unearthingpetromodernity@proton.me.
30 March | Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. Selected chapter TBA (Verso, 2011)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Focus: How fossil fuels structured democratic politics, labour power and modern governance
13 April | Adam Hanieh, “Petrochemical Empire: The Geo-Politics of Fossil-Fuelled Production“ New Left Review (139)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Global production networks, the Gulf region and the restructuring of capitalism through petrochemicals
27 April | Carola Hein (ed.), Oil Spaces: Exploring the Global Petroleumscape. Chapter 8: Peyerl, D. “Building Brazil’s Petroleumscape on Land and Sea: Infrastructure, Expertise, and Technology” (Routledge, 2022)
Henrique Oliveira (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Infrastructure, territorial development and the spatial materiality of oil
11 May | Stephanie LeMenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century. Selected chapter TBA (Oxford University Pres, 2014)
Raquel Ribeiro (CHAM — NOVA FCSH)
Focus: Oil, media, culture, and everyday life in twentieth-century society
25 May | Appel, Mason & Watts (Eds.), Subterranean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas. Introduction: “Oil Talk” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Anthropological and political-economic perspectives on oil extraction and everyday life
8 June | Alice Mah, Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation. Chapter 2: “Enduring Toxic Injustice and Fenceline Mobilizations” (Duke University Press, 2023)
João Pedro Santos (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Environmental justice, pollution, and grassroots activism around petrochemical industries
22 June | Chelsea Schields, Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean. Introduction and Chapter 1. “Crude Bargains” (University of California Press, 2023)
Anita Buhin (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil economies, intimacy, and social relations in offshore extraction zones
6 July | Tim Di Muzio & Matt Dow, “Global capitalism and oil“ in Handbook on Oil and International Relations (Edward Elgar Publishing , 2022)
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA), Amedeo Policante & Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Focus: Oil in international relations, financialization and the structure of global capitalism
Organisation:
Davide Scarso (CIUHCT — FCT NOVA)
Amedeo Policante (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Ricardo Noronha (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Tempo
(Segunda-feira) 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Localização
Link to be provided to registered participants
Zoom
Organizador
Institute of Contemporary History — NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology
News
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May 12, 2026
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Apr 29, 2026
He is one of the curators of the exhibition “Olhares Críticos no Arquivo Colonial – Sombras e Memórias”
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