The evolving Moroccan-European community of practice in green energy transition: energy coloniality vis-à-vis energy democracy

This research examines the emergence of an EU-Moroccan community of practice (CoP) in the green energy transition, focusing on early large-scale solar plants and the subsequent development of green hydrogen. While shared strategic objectives – framed through the EU-Morocco Green Partnership and the Paris Agreement – have consolidated an evolving CoP, its repertoire remains shaped by colonial practices, including land dispossession, resource extraction, control of technical knowledge and exclusion of local communities. Drawing on primary sources – interviews with EU and Moroccan actors, governmental documents, activist accounts, media and civil society reports documenting local contestations – the article examines how affected communities articulate alternative visions of energy democracy. It further explores how contestations interact with the CoP’s practices and background knowledge, producing surface learning within normative and utilitarian dimensions, while deeper learning is blocked by a persistent coloniality of knowledge informing the ways of knowing and doing of both European and Moroccan actors.