Fieldwork in the Jequitinhonha Valley

methodological reflections within an energy transition context

Abstract

This article, written as a fieldwork-based experience report, analyzes the methodological and epistemological challenges faced by sociology in contexts of energy transition, drawing on fieldwork conducted in September 2024 in the Jequitinhonha Valley (MG), a region now promoted as the “Lithium Valley.” Motivated by concerns about the marginalization of sociology in energy debates, often dominated by technical rationales and specialized knowledge, I hypothesize that traditional sociological approaches, by compartmentalizing the social and the technical, face a crisis in light of the speed, technical complexity, and territorial disputes that characterize the contemporary energy transition. To explore the tensions between theory and practice, I employed research tools such as geolocated maps, photographs, and a field notebook, which supported a critical reflection on the everyday dimensions of empirical work. Taking lithium as an analytical lens, I argue that the energy transition, far from being a purely technical process, materializes symbolic, territorial, and geopolitical disputes, requiring sociology to develop tools capable of engaging with technical knowledge without losing its analytical depth. I conclude that, particularly in peripheral contexts such as Brazil, the crisis of sociology can become an opportunity for critical renewal through interdisciplinary and situated practices, or even through an “antedisciplinary” posture, as proposed by Sean Eddy, capable of articulating the social, the technical, and the political, and of addressing the paradoxes of the energy transition across multiple scales.