African Energy Worlds in Film and Media

Can you imagine a post-petroleum world? African Energy Worlds in Film and Media joins energy humanists committed to undoing our deep dependence on fossil fuels and advancing equitable energy transitions by advancing this vision with a spotlight on African perspectives.

African cinema is a rich and varied medium for investigating the entanglements and social embeddedness of energy with global modernity and for imagining a world that leaves fossil fuels behind for unrealized green energy futures. African Energy Worlds in Film and Media shows us how African cinema makes sensible the energetic aspects of life in the ecological mesh that is planet Earth and grounds us in the everyday of the postcolonial, bringing attention to the enduring legacies of racism and colonialism that unevenly distribute energy-related violence and risk and amplifying Africans' demands for access to the energy networks that undergird modernity. With a focus on feature, documentary, and arthouse films, including canonical films by Ousmane Semb?ne and Djbril Diop Mambety and new work by emergent directors Nelson Makengo and Djo Tunda Wa Munga, author Carmela Garritano examines how these stories depict an array of energy sources from mineral extraction to wind and the by-products of these energy processes, like plastic and electronic waste.

Situated at the intersection of film studies, African studies, and energy humanities, African Energy Worlds in Film and Media analyzes the political, social, and economic dimensions of global energy forms and systems as represented in African cinema.

Carmela Garritano is Associate Professor in the Department of International Affairs and affiliated faculty in the Africana Studies program at Texas A&M University. She is author of African Video Movies and Global Desires: A Ghanaian History.