What is the relationship between capitalism and fossil fuels? So far the leading answers to this hotly debated question have claimed as universal the experiences of rich former imperial powers. This project instead centers the economic trajectories and energy systems of postcolonial societies in the Global South. The research team and visiting speakers will range across the planet – from the Americas to India, the Middle East to East Asia – to explore fossil capitalism on different scales, from the operations of national oil companies and multinational energy corporations to the racial violence that fractures labor mobilizations on and under the ground. Such cases promise to clarify the relations between carbon energy and socioeconomic power. Here, they detail the long histories of (neo)colonial extractivism that shape contemporary geopolitical relations and antagonisms. At the same time, they foreground the challenges and dilemmas posed by the twin revolutions of decolonization and democratization. This reframing of fossil capitalism raises new questions about the relationship between state sovereignty, popular expectations, and the hierarchical structures that underpin the international energy order. In the Global South, the dilemma of balancing economic development against ecological harm is posed with existential sharpness in a moment of accelerated climate catastrophe. Drawing together insights from history, anthropology, energy humanities, and political ecology, this project will trace new accounts of the forces holding the fossil economy in place. Moreover, it will reveal alternative paths and nodes of resistance to offer innovative visions of post-fossil futures.