Samadhi Lipari_UNICT_fieldwork data

This document contains a series of field notes on what the renewable energy transition looks like in the socio-ecological context of the Simeto Valley in Sicily. They follow interviews with farmers, livestock breeders, investors, intermediaries, municipal technicians, and local administrators, often beginning from ordinary encounters in farmyards, municipal offices, roadside bars, or in front of maps opened on a computer screen. Through these interviews, the spread of photovoltaic and agrivoltaic plants emerges not simply as a technical or environmental issue, but as a process that is reshaping land, livelihoods, ownership, and people’s relationships with place. The notes return repeatedly to water scarcity, declining agricultural returns, abandoned fields, fragile irrigation systems, and the growing pressure on agricultural land. They also show how the same territory is viewed differently by different actors: as home and inheritance, as an economic resource, as a site for investment, or as a space to be planned and governed. Alongside these contrasting perspectives, the collection explores compensation measures, public agreements, incomplete administrative records, and the difficulty of making large-scale projects visible and understandable to local communities. Taken together, the notes form a narrative and methodological archive of the tensions, uncertainties, and forms of knowledge that surround the energy transition in this part of Sicily.