Solar imaginaries: territorial enclosures and renewable energy politics in Puglia

This article investigates the photovoltaic energy transition in Puglia, a southern region of Italy that in recent decades experienced massive investments in solar infrastructures, significantly reconfiguring socio-natural landscapes. Drawing cultural political economy into conversation with political ecological literature, the article develops the concept of “solar imaginaries” as an analytic to trace local experiences of territorial enclosure and their entanglements with narratives on the green transition. The research also foregrounds counter-narratives and alternative models of development, such as participatory governance arrangements and community projects that challenge dominant techno-fix logics. Based on fieldwork in rural areas around Bari, Taranto, Brindisi, and Lecce, including 39 semi-structured interviews with farmers, developers, public officials, and activists, the research situates solar energy into a broader critique of green capitalism and the commodification of nature. In so doing, the article contributes to debates on primitive accumulation and the contested meanings of just transitions.