Boyer, Dominic (2019). Energopolitics: Wind and power in the Anthropocene. Durham-London. Duke University Press.
A multi-located ethnography
Energopolitics: Wind and power in the Anthropocene is a multi-spaced ethnography. This research draws up the political, economic, and social tensions around wind energy production at Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. The text shows a juxtaposition in which global ‘collapses with’ and is ‘integrated to’ local contexts.[1]
The book problematizes around wind energy production at Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, describing, on the one hand, the conflicts developed at different levels between municipal and federal government powers, the expansive will of 'green' transnational capitalism, politicians 'desires' for instant enrichment and ambitions of regional chieftains; on the other hand, protests against the so called ‘sustainable’ energies and their impact on local traditions and territories. This scenario enables a deep reflection about ‘development’ and ‘sustainability’ in the context of the Anthropocene.
Energopolitics is divided in five sections, each one provides a perspective over a multiscale journey that takes readers from Ixtepec to La Ventosa, then to Oaxaca, Mexico City, and back again to Juchitán.
Duography: two-handed ethnography
The book is part of a joint project elaborated through a methodology called[2] duography, by Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer. This methodological approach emerges from a two-handed ethnography that entail two looks, two perspectives, but intertwined in a joint analysis that leads to two independent ethnographies. It is an effort to reformulate the collaborative fieldwork and data analysis.
Although Energopolitics is signed by Boyer, the author strongly points out that this research is an outcome from a collegiate inquiry called Wind and power in the Anthropocene, which was developed along with Cymene Howe. In this research, the ethnographers, both professors at Rice University, reviewed the same sources to produce two dimensions of analysis. Hence, Boyer presents the results of his investigation in Energopolitics, while Professor Howe did so in Ecologics. After all, the authors work out a joint conclusion and a diagnosis on sustainable energy policy in Mexico, as well as some ideas about ‘development’. This aspect has a great value, because it enables to think about some adjustments on the environmental policies, crossed by corruption, clientelism and inequitable distribution both social and economic benefits.
Key concepts and discussion
There are some undergird concepts that lead this research: energopolitics, biopower, energopower, which are complemented by two reinforce concepts: ontopower and desire.
Taking up the Foucault's idea of biopower, the author points out the asymmetric relationships between global corporations and local ways of living. Thus, power is depicted as an enabling device for interconnections and control over all life aspects.
The concept energopower shows the impact of fuel and electricity production and its backlashes on ecological system. This concept exhibits the interknit between development of global chains of energy supply and relationships both in global and in local scale.
The idea of energopolitics makes possible to think critically about links between fuel, electricity, and political power. Besides, the concept provokes a discussion on energy infrastructures as influential ingredient to produce 'development', despite the appropriation and exploitation articulated around it.
Along with biopower and energopower, Boyer refers two additional concepts to complete the map in order to understand the idea of energopolitics. The first one is ontopower (inspired by Massumi), and the second one is desire (inspired by Freud).
Ontopower gives a broad hint to the ways ‘wind’ is depicted in different cultural ambiances. Among Zapotecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (binnizá) ‘wind’ is a living entity, with subjectivity and agency: the gusts of wind are called bi (life force), ‘old wind’. For Zapotecs ‘wind’ is a corporeal presence that expresses itself in everyday life. This force reveals a link between humans and no humans entities.
As well as in zapotec thought, wind appears as an ontological power in 'capitalism' comprehension but in this case, it has an economic sense. Thus, the ethnographic description of the author demonstrates the clash between western and non-western perspectives about the environment.[3]
Finally, ‘desire’ is depicted as an impulse that always tries to be satisfied, and ‘reason’, appears as a mechanism to control it, this means reason sets limits on desire and makes possible relationship developments in society. Thus, desire remains perpetually unsatisfied, though momentarily controlled. Tension between desire and reason characterizes the behavior of ‘global North’, as Boyer asserts. Western ‘insistence’ to produce fossil fuel in increasing quantities, despite warnings produced by ‘reason’, explains what the author calls ‘paradox of desire’.
This psychological dimension of energopolitics represents — in my opinion — the weakest face of Boyer's proposal, because it places the 'desire' as an innate sense/intention of ‘global North’, but, that idea does not necessarily explain
To sum up, Boyer's text offers an opportunity to make a reflection on two levels.
1) methodological level: how to carry out fieldwork and build up the ethnographic authority applying 'duographic' strategies?
2) conceptual level. The author provides important data to think about political, economic, psychological, and social intertwining located in the energopolitics subtext.
Iván Escoto
[1]George M. Marcus, "Ethnography in/of the World System. The emergence of multilocal ethnography», Alteridades 11, n. 22 (2001).
[2] Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene (Durham ; London: Duke University Press, 2019).
[3]Philippe Descola, Beyond nature and culture (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 2012); Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Perspectivismo y multinaturalismo en la américa indígena (São Paulo: Cosac y Naify, 2002).
Comments
Post a Comment