Taking Back Power: Georgetown in Qatar To Host Energy Justice Conference
In order to confront global inequities and pave the way for a clean energy future, Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) will host a symposium on “Decolonizing Energy: The Past, Present, and Future of Energy Justice,” on October 4, 2025 at its Education City campus.
The symposium convenes leading international scholars, artists, and writers to examine the colonial legacies of global energy systems and creatively imagine just alternatives, opening new pathways for taking back power—both literally and metaphorically. “By engaging histories of energy systems alongside contemporary debates on justice and sustainability, the conference seeks to create space for dialogue rooted in the Global South and attentive to the cultural and political dimensions of energy,” said Dean Safwan Masri.
The program features keynote addresses by New York Times bestselling author Imbolo Mbue, whose fiction illuminates communities resisting multinational oil companies, and Pascale Marthine Tayou, a globally recognized Cameroonian artist whose works interrogate identity, migration, and global power. Additional highlights include the Museum of Carbon Ruins, an immersive presentation envisioning Qatar’s energy future 30 years hence, and “Landscapes in Motion,” a curated exhibition exploring the cultural, political, and ecological legacies of extraction.
“The discussions at Decolonizing Energy will put today’s urgent concerns about energy justice into conversation with a deep Global South tradition of imagining a truly decolonized world,” said Professor Trish Kahle, conference co-organizer, and co-leader of the Energy Humanities research project at GU-Q. “The long history of the struggle to decolonize the Global South still has a lot to teach us about how to imagine a just and livable energy future.” Following the public conference, scholars will workshop papers for a publication on the topic.
As the eleventh installment of GU-Q’s acclaimed Hiwaraat series—which brings world-renowned voices to Qatar for public dialogue on pressing global issues—this symposium deepens previous conversations about sustainability offered during previous conferences on “Global Energy Cultures,” and “Sustaining the Oasis.”
