Indigenous Energy Futures

The current scholarship on Indigenous politics and wind power emphasizes that resistance to local windfarm proposals often targets the political and corporate climate behind renewable energy projects. In contrast, this research project examines how Mapuche community members and their non-Indigenous collaborators seek to rectify the longstanding social, racial, and political issues that prevent the construction of their proposed windfarms, such as:

• Political pressure and police violence against Mapuche leaders who pursue foreign investment and resources for community projects without government sponsorship
• The racialized fears of technicians and engineers who refuse to enter Mapuche territories without police escorts
• Community members who refuse to allow the police to enter Mapuche land
• The risks and costs associated with potential projects which ultimately lead renewable energy firms and financial investors to decline contracts and pull their investments
• The debates within Mapuche communities regarding what role, if any, high cost technology and electrical infrastructure should have in building Indigenous futures

This project resonates with my earlier dissertation fieldwork by examining the ways in which these rural responses to climate change draw from the rural/urban networks and intercultural practices observed in peri-urban Santiago.