It is increasingly acknowledged that a transition to renewable energy is mainly being pursued by capitalist logics of “green growth” and “sustainable development”, as well as utopian discourses of “ecological modernization”, which are producing devastating social and ecological consequences. This article aims to contribute to critical research on conventional energy transition strategies by applying the perspective of pragmatic sociology to the local contestation of a proposed large-scale solar energy project in the South of Portugal. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, we seek not only to understand the “place imaginaries” that inform community responses but also to identify how imaginaries translate into reflexive visions of the future and which orders of worth are used for rendering these imagined futures realistic. We follow the activities of a small group of residents who, via different regimes of engagement, seek to enroll support against the project by representing local knowledge and perspectives, translating personal concerns and anticipations into public issues and common futures. We also describe the painful moments where residents living in close proximity to the site, who are neither directly involved in the protest group nor consulted by authorities, struggle to represent their own futures. We find that notions such as “sacrifice zone” are playing an important strategic role as they simultaneously express different imaginaries of place and expectations of domestic loss, industrial decline, ecological destruction and personal risk. We also find that the way residents engage with the notion of the “scale” of the project is crucial to their representations and strategies of "self-vulnerabilization".

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