'Winds of Desire: Energopolitics and Renewable Power in Southern Mexico'
Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe, Rice University

This paper explores the vulnerabilities and aspirations of neoliberal petrostates as they embark on projects of energy transition. We focus on Mexico where the recent precipitous drop in national oil production has made renewable energy into a particularly important site for national economic development and political imagination. Among other initiatives, the Mexican government has set its sights on the tremendous wind power potential in the state of Oaxaca as a centerpiece of its new energy strategy. Yet, with its unusually strong history of indigenous cultural rights, municipal autonomy, and the ejido system of collective land ownership, Oaxaca represents difficult political terrain for governmental intervention. In response, federal and regional government officials have engaged in widespread brokerage efforts to align the interests of local citizens and foreign investors with their own. Our paper discusses the complex political culture of energy transition in Oaxaca and uses the case study to reflect more broadly upon 'energopolitics' (power over and through energy) as an emergent research problem for political and environmental anthropology and for the human sciences more broadly.

The seminar series is co-funded by the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester and the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change