This article examines the systemic resistance to the expansion of solar energy infrastructure in Italy. It does so with a focus on rural areas. Using a multifaceted methodological approach, the study analyses the economic, political, and cultural factors contributing to this resistance, which is closely intertwined with Italy’s reliance on fossil fuels. It identifies a complex network of opposing forces, including agricultural and industrial groups, political parties and environmental organisations, all committed to preserving the land and socio-economic continuity. By means of an analysis of national policies and case studies at different levels, the article highlights the tensions between renewable energy goals and local cultural and agricultural preservation efforts. Case studies in Sicily and Apulia highlight the complex dynamics at play, where large-scale solar projects have provoked a backlash due to concerns about land use, energy equity, and the socio-economic impact on rural communities. The findings show that such resistance is not simply a reaction to renewable energy projects; rather, it reflects deeper conflicts over cultural preservation, governance structures and economic transitions, and it often conceals attempts to strengthen the dependence on fossil fuels. The study highlights the need for integrated and inclusive approaches to renewable energy governance that address both local and systemic challenges in order to facilitate a just transition to a sustainable energy future.

This article reframes sustainability transitions by positioning the deliberate deactivation of fossil fuel infrastructures—such as coal plants, oil fields, and pipelines—as a central mechanism of systemic change. While prevailing approaches often emphasize renewable energy and innovation, they tend to neglect how existing fossil systems are actively maintained by powerful networks. We argue that sustainability transitions require not only building alternatives but also deactivating entrenched fossil infrastructures. To address this gap, we propose an analytical framework that conceptualizes deactivation as a contested socio-political process shaped by antagonistic interactions between fossil blocs—coalitions of incumbent agents defending fossil infrastructures—and emerging deactivation networks working to disable and dismantle them. Drawing on six illustrative cases from diverse contexts, we examine the legal, institutional, narrative, and spatial mechanisms through which deactivation is either enabled or obstructed. We also introduce an interdisciplinary methodology that combines path tracing, social network analysis, and qualitative comparison to analyze how these dynamics between fossil blocs and deactivation networks evolve over time. This article contributes to the sustainability transition literature by demonstrating that the deactivation of fossil infrastructures is a political, material, and justice-oriented process, one that is essential to ending fossil fuel dependency and enabling sustainable futures.

This chapter offers an analysis of ecological restoration practices in a rural settlement in the Pontal do Paranapanema region, located in the west of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Restoration is approached here as an agencement resulting from a set of socio-ecological reparation practices developed by heterogeneous agents. The purpose of the restoration practices analyzed here is to create new forms of encounter and cohabitation. The territory in question is historically marked by ecological degradation resulting from an extensive exploitation of natural resources, the violence of armed militias and conflicts around land occupation. Restoration as an agencement that is orientated towards socio-ecological repairing simultaneously works as a technique for regenerating the soil and local biodiversity, as an incentive for the political organization of rural settlers and as a system of socio-economic production based on agro-ecological techniques and local consumption. To succeed, this restoration work requires a joint effort involving different actors (human and non-human) in a context that is marked by vulnerability and precariousness. The conclusion discusses the challenges of recovery in a context of ongoing slow violence in which the devastation caused by the economic and political processes that shaped the territory’s current geomorphological configuration is increased by the pressure that the agro-export model today exerts at the local level.