Sonic Energies. The impact of energy transitions on Southern Italian traditional woodwind instruments

Objective

Amid the accelerating climate crisis, developing new ways of understanding our relationship with energy is essential. The field of Energy Humanities has foregrounded energy epistemologies - how societies perceive and conceptualise energy within cultural, political, and historical contexts - but their sonic dimensions remain critically underexplored. This project addresses this gap by investigating the sonic impact of past and present energy transitions, revealing how rural communities’ sound practices encode alternative conceptions of energy and generate novel insights into overlooked epistemologies in Southern Italy. Adopting a transdisciplinary approach that bridges Energy Humanities, Ethnomusicology, and Social Theory, the project analyses how artisans and performers of traditional woodwind instruments embody non-modern energy epistemologies - organic systems and material practices attentive to non-human agency - which underpin their subtle forms of resistance and adaptation to energy infrastructural change. A multi-method strategy combining environmental and energy history, discourse analysis, ethnography, and sound studies will illuminate how successive energy transitions have transformed both instrument-making and sonic practices across rural areas of Southern Italy. Findings will be disseminated through scientific papers, a travelling art exhibition and a long-standing interactive website, maximising public and scholarly engagement while creating a lasting cultural resource. The Institute of Ethnomusicology at NOVA University of Lisbon offers world-leading expertise to support the project’s innovative scope and impact. The project will decisively reinforce the fellow's trajectory toward academic leadership and groundbreaking research in the Energy Humanities.