Tracing Colonial Continuities
Internal Colonialism and Energy Transition in Sardinia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24212972 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Martina Loi (0000-0003-0770-6949, Università degli Studi di Cagliari Cagliari Italy), Alice Salimbeni (0000-0003-2954-2594, University College Dublin Dublin Ireland) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Publication date | 2026-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Antipode (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0066-4812 • E-ISSN: 1467-8330 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/anti.70218 |
| OpenAlex | W7220655684 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 58 |
Internal colonialism provides historical and structural conditions making current forms of energy extractivism possible. Processes through which earlier internal colonisation operated—territorial dispossession, racialised hierarchies, forced modernisation and the construction of internal ‘Others’—are reactivated today under the global imperatives of decarbonisation. We examine the continuities between internal colonialism and energy colonialism through the empirical case of Sardinia, where, over the past 150 years, successive waves of internal colonisation produced systemic poverty, constrained self‐determination and entrenched the island's position as a sacrifice zone within the Italian State. The energy transition, presented as serving the collective good, works in continuity with internal colonialism by targeting the island as a low‐cost, politically marginal and exploitable territory. Drawing on our engagement within a wide ecology of dissent, we identify three interwoven analytical axes—Land, Labour and Politics—through which internal and energy colonialism work in continuity.
Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies · Extractivism and Socioeconomic Issues · Political Economy and Marxism
Depoliticized Environments
Aliens in Their Native Lands
Energy and Colonialism
An island in the sun. material Legacies of colonialism in sardinia between the nation-building process and (a lack of) decolonization
The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism
On the multiple frontiers of extraction
Who owns the land owns the wind? Land and citizenship in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico
Energy justice
Green Sacrifice Zones, or Why a Green New Deal Cannot Ignore the Cost Shifts of Just Transitions
More than a metaphor
Rushing for the gold of the energy transition
Opening up energy
Repositioning energy geographies in a time of crisis
Indigenous environmental justice and sustainability
Climates of democracy
The energy transition(s) in Catalonia, Corsica, and Sardinia
Zero carbon as economic restructuring
Is Green Growth Possible
Energy transitions and the global land rush
The Infrastructures of Internal Colonialism
On the Coloniality of “New” Mega‐Infrastructure Projects in East Africa
Internal Colonialism as Socio‐Ecological Fix
Empires and Colonialism
Internal colonialism and national development
Towards Hemispheric Conversations in the Americas
The Enduring Problem of Statism
Democratizing energy justice
Anthropocene, Capitalocene & the Flight from World History
Energy colonialism
Labour in transition
Decolonizing energy justice from the ground up
A socioecological fix to capitalist crisis and climate change? The possibilities and limits of renewable energy
The Capitalocene Part II
Who owns the wind? Understanding wind energy production through a property chains perspective
What is land? Assembling a resource for global investment
Between improvement and sacrifice
Environmental justice and the state
The political ecologies of "green" extractivism(s)
Revisiting Connections Between Capital and Nature I
On the Coloniality of Being
Land rush
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |