Best from both worlds – enhancing energy transition in Russia and Finland by making resource flows visible

The FLOWISION consortium focuses on the visibility of fossil and renewable energy and waste as they traverse through the society in Russia and Finland. By unfolding how these resource flows are made (in)visible in these contexts opens avenues to understand how these commodities are part of the political. That is, visibility and visualization of resource flows, or the lack of it, tells about how these commodities are being (de)politicized, and how they are being imagined as part of climate mitigation policies and practices, and the broader environmental agenda. This knowledge makes it possible both to understand and promote climate-friendly policies and practices. The FLOWISION project aims to learn from both contexts – look for the best narratives and practices – to come up with advice how to speed up the energy transition. We study (de)visualization and (de)politicization of resource flows with an assemblage approach. Hence, we scrutinize how the materialities (e.g. infrastructures) entangled and discourses associated with these resources are utilized to build societally and politically desired assemblages. We head to understand these energy and waste assemblages via three realms: the energy sector, civic activism, and the media. The synthesis of basic research within the FLOWISION project provides us with knowledge facilitating energy transition to a carbon-neutral world beyond the contexts of Russia and Finland. Thus, we engage in action research by proposing new ways to visualize and thus make the flows of fossil and renewable energies, and waste part of political debates, in Russia and Finland, and beyond. This visualization and politicization will be carried out by leaning on co-production between the team's scientists, journalists and artists, and it includes research on the societal impact of our co-production actions.