Europa-Universität Flensburg
Munketoft 3
24943 Flensburg
The VISION project, a collaborative effort between the FossilExit research group and the South African NGO groundWork, addresses the critical gap between high-level climate policy and local lived experiences in the Mpumalanga coal belt. South Africa is uniquely dependent on coal, which accounts for approximately 88% of its electricity generation. This dependence has created a socio-technical lock-in where local economies, identities, and even basic social services are tethered to coal extraction.
The primary reason for this project is the growing disconnect between international climate mandates and the lived reality of coal-dependent communities. While the South African government has committed to the Paris Agreement, the resulting Just Transition frameworks are often perceived as top-down impositions. For the inhabitants of Mpumalanga, who provide nearly 80% of the nation’s coal, decarbonization is frequently synonymous with abandonment.
Primary Strategic Objectives:
• Decolonising Transition Research: To move away from Global North assumptions and develop research outputs that directly benefit the researched communities. This involves using local languages (isiZulu) and cultural contexts to define what a "good life" looks like beyond coal.
• Capacity building for Procedural Justice: A key objective was to transform community members from passive observers of policy into active participants. By using applied theatre, the project aimed to provide a safe rehearsal space for communities to practice demanding agency over vital resources like water, food, and energy.
• Influencing Policy through Local Narratives: The project aims to translate these local, often marginalised visions into high-level policy tools (Policy Briefs and Academic Papers). The objective is to force national and international decision-makers to confront the messy human reality of the transition, moving beyond hollow promises toward a Road of Acceptance co-created by those most affected
The project identifies a critical Imaginative Impasse: a state of cognitive paralysis where the immediate struggles for e.g. survival, unemployment, illness, make it impossible for residents to envision a future without coal. This "Burden of the Now" turns the JT into a threat rather than an opportunity. The objective of VISION was to bridge this gap by shifting the focus from macro-economic data to local sociotechnical imaginaries, which are collectively held visions of a desirable future.
The project implemented a multi-stage, transdisciplinary methodology centered on Mobile Transition Schools (MTS) and Applied Theatre. This approach was designed to bridge the gap between abstract energy policy and the lived physical and emotional realities of coal-affected communities.
• Theoretical Framework: The project integrated the theory of Sociotechnical Imaginaries (collectively held visions of social life) with Prefigurative Politics, the practice of "living the future in the present", creating social laboratories where new ways of relating and organizing Ara experimented with in the here-and-now, rather than waiting for a distant post-transition state.
• The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO): Developed by Augusto Boal, the Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of education that uses theatre as a tool for social and political change. Unlike traditional theatre, its aim is not just to perform a story, but to empower the audience to become protagonists of their own lives. For example, a scene depicting a "ghost town" (the fear of economic death after coal) or a corrupt transition process was performed. Through a facilitated dialogue in the play, audience members became "spec-actors", intervening in the play to trial different strategies for community-led energy ownership, and alternative social structures.
• Co-Creative Scripting: The project facilitated two week-long workshops with environmental justice activists from the Mpumalanga region. Applied theatre professionals worked alongside these activists to map out local struggles, historical traumas, and grassroots ideas for the future. A professional playwright then transformed these co-created sketches and testimonies into a flexible, modular script titled "Old King Coal". The modular nature allowed performers to adapt the play to different local contexts and languages in real-time.
• Documentation and Translation: Accessibility and community ownership of the research were paramount. To prevent the knowledge from being locked away in academic circles, the project's core visions and findings were translated into a bilingual brochure in English and isiZulu.
• Academic Papers and Policy Briefs: To bridge the gap between activism and institutional decision-making, the project team developed high-level academic papers and policy briefs. These formal outputs, combined with the accessible brochures, ensure that local narratives influence both the "fenceline" discourse and national energy strategy.
The project yielded insights into the difficulties of visioning under conditions of systemic oppression.
• The "Bread and Poison" Paradox: A major result was the articulation of the visceral conflict between the need for coal-funded livelihoods ("bread") and the desire for "environmental healing" from respiratory illnesses caused by pollution ("poison").
• Discussion of Future Visions: The project found that while a "perfect" utopian vision was difficult to achieve, the process of dialogue was a result in itself. The performances revealed that communities are not just concerned with jobs, but with "Socially Owned Assets." There is a strong demand for decentralized renewable energy models that provide direct agency over water, food, and electricity, rather than replacing a coal monopoly with a private green monopoly.
• Methodological Reflection: The MTS proved that creative methods can lower the stakes of political conversation. By using caricature and humor to depict "coal mafias" and technocratic elites, the project allowed participants to voice dangerous truths in a safe, fictionalized environment. However, the "Imaginative Impasse" remains a challenge; the transition must be managed not just technically, but psychologically, to address the fear of "becoming soldiers lost in a war" (collateral damage of global decarbonization).
Public relations focused on bridging the gap between local activism and international academia:
• Bilingual Outreach: The production of the isiZulu/English brochure was a important, allowing the project to speak back to the community in their primary language.
• Scientific Dissemination: The project resulted in two academic papers and a comprehensive Policy Brief influence the "Just Transition" discourse in the Global South.
• Digital Engagement: Regular updates on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and the University of Flensburg website ensured that the Mobile Transition Schools concept reached energy researchers and NGOs globally.
• Performances: The public performances served as high-visibility outreach events, bringing together over 50 participants per session, including local activists, residents, and stakeholders, to discuss the policy implications of the "Old King Coal" play.
The VISION project concludes that a Just Transition is a "Road of Acceptance," not a single destination. The traditional approach of delivering complete blueprints from the top-down is doomed to fail in regions like Mpumalanga because it ignores the deep-seated "Burden of the Now."
Key conclusions include:
1. Process over Product: Procedural justice requires time-intensive, creative engagement that allows communities to "rehearse" the future before they are asked to accept it.
2. Agency is Essential: A transition is only "just" if it transfers ownership of vital resources to the local level, breaking the cycle of extractive governance.
3. The Role of Art: Applied theatre is a necessary tool for decolonizing energy research, as it legitimizes local knowledge and emotional realities alongside technical data. Future policy must invest in long-term, socio-psychological accompaniment for coal-dependent regions, ensuring that the transition is viewed as a community-owned reality rather than an external threat.