It was nearly 8 p.m. when I started my descent from the mountain. It was dark and starting to get cold, and Bergen underneath burst into an incandescent shimmering show. I watched the ships dock and undock, I watched bergensar chatting and walking their dogs. It really was time – I could not hide out there forever; plus, the Björk playlist went into its fourth spin, and I simply could not find a soundtrack more appropriate for this scene than Björk – and even she got a little tired.
I had gone to the mountain – twice – to get some clarity. The first time in the early morning before the conference, partially to run away from three reviewers who had just sent their merciless comments on my second paper, the one I was presenting at the conference. The second time – the evening it ended. The first time I came down with a question mark in my head (and a resignation to the reviewers), and the second – with a cold and a head full of fog.
I guess what I was looking for up there was a place beyond oil. ‘Beyond Oil – Refuelling Transformation’ was the name of the conference hosted by the Climate and Energy Transformation Centre at the University of Bergen. For two days a bunch of (mostly) academics were locked up in a building of the ‘Literature House’ (with a brief excursion to a trendy vegan restaurant in the docks), talking about ‘transformations’. As in, transforming our societies so they could go beyond oil. We talked about ‘just transitions’, ‘climate justice’, ‘green deals’, ‘experimentation’, ‘participation’, ‘co-production’, ‘grand narratives’, ‘knowledge architecture’, ‘ontological interruptions’. As if by creating a loud and fuzzy buzz of a conversation, we wanted to talk our way through and out of the materiality of the oil condition. We talked about the cracks which need to be widened so that more light can get through; about resonance and dissonance, consensus and discord, and the discussion leaned heavily towards the preference for the latter. Typically for an academic setting, the discourse was geared towards the focus on conflict, discontinuities, ruptures, discrepancies – because this is where the light gets through, or, in academic terms, this is where the ‘research object’ lies.
And yet, in our quest for going beyond oil we were aligned. We had a (seeming at least) consensus for a quest for justice, for our contempt for neoliberalism, for our assertion of the paramount role knowledge plays in ‘transformations’, how academic knowledge needs to be decentred, and how we need to be humble. We were aligned in our quotes from Elinor Ostrom, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Nancy Fraser, Donna Haraway, Frans Fanon and Paulo Freire. At some point, I started having a religious feeling (something I had only experienced previously at Stockholm Resilience Centre). That’s when the red light went on in my head. What’s going on here, I asked. Who are we trying to convince, what are we trying to pitch? Are we splitting hairs, trying to show how my perspective is slightly better, a slight improvement on the previous work? Or are we trying to nurture something, reinforce, create resonance, empower ourselves in this upward spiral which these gatherings (the best ones) create? And is either of these good enough, does it pay off?
What I refer to as a religious feeling was described by the panel as the echo chamber. There is no one here from the oil industry this year, one of the speakers in the final panel carefully pointed out. There used to be! – they hastened to correct themselves. In fact, it was the trademark of ‘Beyond Oil’ for me that there would be someone with a radically different perspective! I didn’t mean it as a criticism. This ‘uncriticism’ was quickly picked up by the moderator and made into a jest – and a point of collective self-reflection. As academics are wont to do.
And of course, as academics are wont to, they were quick to point out the paradox of the situation. We were going ‘beyond oil’ in the oil’s very lap. The chairs we were sitting on, the screens on which we were projecting our messages, the computers from which we were projecting them and the wires/Bluetooth devices we were projecting them through, the walls sheltering us from Bergen’s rain, the coffee cups we were drinking from, the clothes we were wearing – all were steeped in oil. Oil was flowing through the veins of this city. In the gilded Norway, it was oil flying the Norwegian flags. The ships came in and out fuelled by oil, bringing and taking away people and things which were partially made of oil (think of all the microplastics in our bodies), and partially enabled by oil to be – and to be there. The flights landed, the trains rushed in and out of tunnels. Bergen was connected to the world through a complex, intricate, vibrant machinery powered – and oiled – by oil. Oil was Bergen’s raison d’être, and I was there because of oil. We all were. Because without oil, our research would not only be impossible; it would be obsolete. Dreaming of phasing out oil, we were dreaming of phasing out ourselves.
And so I went up the mountain. To look for some salvation. I am not religious, neither am I spiritual, but I thought, maybe I could be spiritual just this once (or twice) in the ‘spirits of the mountain’ sense of spirituality. I was hoping that the spirits of the mountain would whisk me away. That I be ‘spirited away’, to a place where oil has not reached – and yet I would be alive, despite the odds. (Because if oil had not been discovered, would I have even been born?)
They didn’t (the spirits, that is). Neither the first nor the second time. I safely came back, just as spiritless (or dispirited) as I had left.
I came back to my hotel, unpacked my little zip pouch from Apoteket full of immunity boosters and watched the Icelandic film ‘Kona fer í stríð’, recommended to us by our dear colleague to watch for the ‘film club’. Our department’s ‘film club’ was the next day, and even though I was not participating, I had a bad conscience about not having done the homework (plus the Björk playlist still playing in my foggy head).
I did my homework, like a good girl, and watched the film. There was a moment when the main character (a militant environmentalist) was on the verge of being caught by the nasty police and military forces, and she needed to persuade someone (a farmer) to hide her. The farmer was deeply sceptical and seemingly unpersuadable. She said, I truly, really believe that what I’m doing is right. And that’s it. It was her argument – and it worked. He hid her among his sheep and became her accomplice and close friend. To justify his commitment to her cause, he even invented that they were relatives of the same clan – it’s Iceland we’re talking about.
She said she believed that what she was doing was right, despite the entire national security force being after her. I asked myself, could I say as much about what I’m doing?
One researcher said at the conference: I hope that my research will offset my emissions manifold. I wish I could find that conviction, or find a way to do this kind of research. Currently, my research is totally unactionable and, let’s face it, useless in any conventional sense. I do not even intend to produce anything ‘policy-relevant’ or, the spirits of the mountains forbid, ‘solutions-oriented’. I was taught that this was bad and uncritical, against intellectual autonomy and academic freedom, and not what public money should be spent on. What am I doing then?
I am standing on board the ship docked at the beautiful city of Bergen. I know that this ship will sink. In the olden days, the captains used to go down with their ships. (I’m not sure that it’s a thing anymore – surely health and safety regulations no longer allow it? I wondered, is there some research about this tradition and how it has been interrupted by the introduction of health and safety regulations? I even wondered if I could study this phenomenon using the theory of governmentality, but then I decided to stop indulging myself.) I thought – I am no captain, but I’m going down with the ship for sure. What am I then? The musicians in ‘Titanic’ kept playing – I’m not even a musician. But I feel like I am keeping the passengers on a sinking ship entertained with my research.
Drawing heavily on Leonard Cohen, a conference organiser said: We need to widen the cracks. Now this is my only hope. That the cognitive dissonance I experienced at ‘Beyond Oil’ will open up some cracks which will allow me to get off the sinking ship (these two metaphors don’t jell very well together, but you get the point). Get onto the solid ground, so that the spirits of the mountain can come and take me away to the beyond oil kingdom.
As a researcher/artist, how do you see your work offsetting your emissions? And would you say to the farmer and his sheep: I truly believe that what I am doing is right – hide me and risk your lives?
Fathom 