Energy Transitions by Cymene Howe
The Routledge Handbook of Energy Humanities , 2025
Is it possible to engage with energy as both a physical phenomenon and a cultural matter? And wha... more Is it possible to engage with energy as both a physical phenomenon and a cultural matter? And what might it mean to think of energy as a social force? For anthropologists, what energy is, and can be, are both exciting and challenging questions. In its material meaning, energy is the power cultivated through mechanical or chemical processes to do things like animate machines, shed light, or warm and cool spaces; in its simplest definition, energy is the capacity to do work thermodynamically, kinetically, electrically, chemically, by splitting atoms and most provocatively of all: as potential energy. Whole fields of natural science orbit around energy and its possibilities (Daggett 2019). In the humanities and social sciences, energy also operates as a durable metaphor codified in language to describe personal dynamism or a set of characteristics orientated toward productivity. But it also evokes spiritual forces, auras and transcendental powers-energy captures both the physical and the metaphysical.
ENERGÍA EÓLICA INTERRUMPIDA SELECCIÓN, 2023
Para la resistencia, la instalación del megapro- yecto era una imposición neocolonial más, que de... more Para la resistencia, la instalación del megapro- yecto era una imposición neocolonial más, que despojaba a los indígenas de sus tierras para beneficio de los financiadores europeos. Des- de este punto de vista, no es de extrañar que la expansión de los parques eólicos en la región pasara a denominarse de un modo más gene- ral “la nueva conquista”. En el frustrado par- que eólico vemos que la transición depende en gran medida del lugar del que se trate. El cambio a nuevas formas de energía es funda- mental para la salud climática global, pero se vivirá de manera distinta en función de los in- tereses locales y globales.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2019
Renewable energy projects are ethically laudable for their cleansing intentions, but they also pr... more Renewable energy projects are ethically laudable for their cleansing intentions, but they also produce effects upon other-than-human beings in their orbit. Taking the case of Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which is home to the densest concentration of onshore wind parks anywhere in the world, and following Foucault's reading of the speech form 'parrhesia', this essay argues that the bodies of affected nonhuman beings, particularly those whose existence is actively balanced against a 'greater good' for humanity, enact a form of other-than-human speech, first in their threatened status and, secondly, through environmental management regimes that seek to synchronize human and nonhuman lives in settings of both local and global ecological failures. Free speech In one of his lesser-known theoretical fascinations, Michel Foucault contemplated a Greek speech form called parrhesia. His notes tell us that this term is ordinarily translated into English as 'free speech'. In its subjective usage, the parrhesiastes is s/he/they who utilize parrhesia, the one who speaks her/his/their truth. Parrhesia is the articulation of a genuine belief, unencumbered by rhetoric and thus purified in its honesty. The parrhesiastes uses their freedom to choose frankness over persuasion, or flattery over morality, selecting veracity in place of falsehoods.
Cultural Anthropology, Theorizing the Contemporary, Green Capitalism, 2020
“After Oil: Explorations and Experiments in the Future of
Energy, Culture and Society” is a colla... more “After Oil: Explorations and Experiments in the Future of
Energy, Culture and Society” is a collaborative, interdisciplinary
research partnership...
In Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec state and private interests have created the densest developme... more In Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec state and private interests have created the densest development of wind power anywhere in the world. This article examines how a well-supported, ecologically timely, project, the Mareña Renovables wind park, failed in the face of unexpected levels of local resistance. The reasons for the park’s demise involve perceptions regarding a general lack of transparency, anger at the manipulation of local authorities, and worries about growing social inequality, as well as political polarization and violence in the region. Exploring the challenges faced by what would have been Latin America’s largest single-phase wind park, this article charts the political genealogy of the anti-Mareña resistance and their commitment to non-hierarchal organizational models; it describes how the resistance criticized neoliberal forms of development and foreign financial intervention; and finally, it considers how local opposition raised concerns regarding the environmental and social consequences of “megaproject”-level development. The authors argue that while transitions to renewable energy have the ethical potential to leverage a global climatological good, when they are seen to contravene local claims for rights, autonomy, environmental knowledge and ecological stewardship, they instead generate, as Mareña found, the conditions for failure.
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Energy Transitions by Cymene Howe
Energy, Culture and Society” is a collaborative, interdisciplinary
research partnership...