Nostos Salon 11
A monthly gathering of good food, drinks, and conversation—where anthropology meets community in an engaging, accessible way.
The Anthropology of Energy, Everyday Life, and Imagined Futures with Dr Fareed Kaviani
This salon explored the anthropology of energy, everyday life, and imagined futures, examining how the choices, habits, and expectations of ordinary households, not industry forecasts or infrastructure plans, are quietly shaping what Australia's energy future will actually look like. In an era marked by the pressures of the energy transition, growing reliance on technology to manage everyday life, and mounting uncertainty about what 2050 will bring, this conversation invites us to reflect on how the future is imagined, and whose imagination gets to count as evidence.
Through the lens of anthropology, futures studies, and interdisciplinary energy research, we'll explore how households actually live with energy, technology, and change, and how scenarios built from real lives can challenge assumptions baked into top-down forecasting. How does watching the way people cook, heat, charge, and organise their days reveal something that expert modelling alone cannot? What does it mean to design an energy future around lived experience rather than around the grid? Whose everyday practices are treated as data worth taking seriously, and whose are overlooked? And how might grounded, people-centred research help us build energy futures that are more liveable, not just more efficient?
We are delighted to welcome Dr Fareed Kaviani, Research Fellow in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University. His research foregrounds social science knowledge and interdisciplinary methodology to anticipate energy and technology futures and social change, currently through the RACE Scenarios for Future Living project, which places households at the centre of energy planning rather than starting from industry projection. His work draws on in-depth qualitative research with households to build scenarios for how Australians might live with energy through to 2050, alongside related work engaging young people directly in imagining AI and energy futures.
Special thanks to NON and NOW Wines for supporting this event.
Recommended Reading and Resources via Zine
“Energy hardship is no longer just about affordability”
- Fareed Kaviani