This book presents valuable insights, critiques, and contributions from energy researchers focused on Latin American case studies. Their work not only enriches the understanding of energy justice but also addresses a significant gap in the current academic literature.
Since it was coined as an academic term more than ten years ago, energy justice has experienced accelerated growth as a relevant and widely recognised concept that allows energy researchers to engage with diverse energy issues. Nevertheless, energy justice still faces theoretical and empirical gaps, including a lack of diversity in author demographics and case studies coming from regions in the Global South. Against this backdrop, this book brings together 30 authors whose research draws from Latin American countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Peru, as well as wider regional perspectives. The selected case studies combine low-carbon transitions, regulations and technologies with issues of gender, indigeneity, (neo)colonialism, autonomy, poverty and inequality. Importantly, the chapters examine how energy justice might influence existing approaches and worldviews on sustainability, which strive for just and clean future energy systems by redressing regional inequalities and tackling the global challenge of climate change. As such, Energy Justice in Latin America opens new spaces for a growing research community to redefine and jointly construct a more complete, regionally specific notion of energy justice.
Highlighting the ways in which the discussion included in this book resonates with other regions in the Global South, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy justice, energy poverty, energy democracy and energy policy, as well as Latin American studies more broadly.
This book presents valuable insights, critiques, and contributions from energy researchers focused on Latin American case studies. Their work not only enriches the understanding of energy justice but also addresses a significant gap in the current academic literature.
INTRODUCTION
Chapter
1. Energy justice in Latin America: Exploring a growing agenda
Adolfo Mejķa-Montero
PART I
Regional reflections on energy justice across Latin America
Chapter
2. Political Economy and Energy Justice: Rentier Dynamics in Fossil
Extractivist States in Latin America
Rosa Lehmann and Pedro Alarcón
Chapter
3. Conflicts linked to critical minerals and renewables in South
America The hydropower and copper cases through the energy justice lens
Axel Bastiįn Poque Gonzįlez
Chapter
4. Searching for indigenous energy justice: Case studies of Costa
Ricas El Diquķs and Panamas Barro Blanco hydroelectric projects
Nora Hampl
Chapter
5. Bioethical Aspects Related to Energy Poverty in Latin America: An
Energy Justice Approach
Carlos Dķaz-Rodrķguez
Chapter
6. Wind turbine blades: An emerging energy justice agenda in Latin
America.
Eduardo Martķnez-Mendoza, Eduardo Fernįndez-Echeverrķa, Gregorio
Fernįndez-Lambert, Marieli Lavoignet-Ruķz and Luis Enrique Garcķa-Santamarķa
PART II
Lessons and experiences of low-carbon transitions and energy justice within
national borders
Chapter
7. The Chilean Energy Transition through Energy Justice as a Policy
Assessment Approach
Nicolįs Silva Valenzuela
Chapter
8. Wind Farms Impacts and Energy Justice Relationships: The Case of
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico
Eduardo Martķnez-Mendoza and Luis Arturo Rivas-Tovar
Chapter
9. Exploring Bolivias lithium ambition through an expanded energy
justice lens
Romain Mauger and Paola Villavicencio-Calzadilla
Chapter
10. Astronomy and Energy Justice in the Atacama Desert
Paola Velasco Herrejón, Isabelle Viole, Guillermo Valenzuela-Venegas, Sabrina
Sartori, Marianne Zeyringer.
PART II
Criticizing and expanding energy justice grounded on a Latin American
perspective
Chapter
11. Constructing a regulatory framework for energy justice? Evidence
from Ecuador
Mendieta-Vicuńa, Diana and Esparcia, Javier
Chapter
12. How do you live and adapt to energy insecurity?
Gianna Monteiro Farias Simões and Solange Maria Leder
Chapter
13. Towards energy justice in Argentina. Learning from inclusion
experiences.
Alejandra Ise, Silvina Carrizo, Luciana Clementi1 and Marie Forget
Chapter
14. Struggles for Pluriversal Fairness: Decolonizing energy justice
through autonomous praxis in Mexico
Carlos Tornel
Chapter
15. Beyond Inclusion: Advocating for a Feminist Understanding of
Energy Justice
Lillian Sol Cueva
CONCLUSION
Chapter
16. Powering Energy Justice in Latin America
Adolfo Mejķa-Montero
Index
Adolfo Mejķa-Montero is a lecturer in Energy, Society, and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, where he is part of the School of Social and Political Sciences Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS). He also serves as the director of the MSc programme in Energy, Society, and Sustainability within the School of Geosciences. With an interdisciplinary background in physics, engineering, and human geography, Adolfo has contributed to a wide range of research projects focused on energy justice, lowcarbon energy projects in indigenous territories, wind and solar power, mixedmethods research, and sustainable energy systems, particularly in Latin America and the United Kingdom.
