Fossil mentalities: How fossil fuels have shaped social imaginaries

With the concept of "fossil mentalities" and "fossil imaginaries" we introduce an analytical toolkit for historically informed and socially differentiated research on the interactions between pre-fossil, fossil, and post-fossil energy regimes on the one hand and societal patterns of perception, feelings, and action on the other. The paper starts by combining arguments from the history of mentalities and sociological analyzes of relational social structures and habitus to develop a historically informed conception of mentalities and social imaginaries. We then provide a short review of existing literature on the mutual relations and influences of fossil resources and mentalities, focusing on carbon culture and fossil imaginaries. The main section draws together historical literature on the transformation to the widespread use of fossil resources in the 18th to 20th century to analyze the extent to which modern mentalities were based on fossil resources, but conversely also enable the use of fossil resources. Revisiting debates on the societal transformation from pre-fossil, cyclical societies to fossil, extractive societies based on linear flows and the associated shifts in mentalities thus complements previous sociological and historical research on energy transitions. Based on this analysis, we develop a set of key dimensions that are central to research on the relationship between energy transformations and mentalities – including the current transformations towards post-fossil futures.