Cascades of Un/Becoming: How Blackouts Impact Transitional Electropolitics

Blackouts, though typically dismissed as momentary disruptions, can catalyze sweeping shifts in energy governance and public consciousness. In examining the 2016-2017 blackout in South Australia and the 2021 Texas Freeze, we introduce transitional electropolitics to capture how these infrastructural crises reveal both the fragility of incumbent fossil-fuel regimes and the potential for rapid transitions. We show how blackouts, as “cascades of un/becoming,” illuminate divergent trajectories. One event in South Australia galvanized new policy commitments and grid-scale batteries, accelerating a more resilient, renewables-based system; the other in Texas laid bare deep structural risks while reinforcing entrenched carbopolitical interests. Drawing on in-depth analyses of engineering reports, social media debates, and community experiences, we highlight how storms themselves become key actants in energopolitics, eliciting new forms of public engagement and political maneuvering. Rather than isolated failures, blackouts operate as charged inflection points, revealing the contradictions of a climate-challenged world and offering surprising opportunities for transformative change.