Contested Powers

In the global North the commoditization of creativity and knowledge under the banner of a creative economy is being posed as the post-industrial answer to dependency on labour and natural resources. Not only does it promise a more stable and sustainable future, but an economy focused on intellectual property is more environmentally friendly, so it is suggested.

Contested Powers argues that the fixes being offered by this model are bluffs; development as witnessed in Latin American energy politics and governance remains hindered by a global division of labour and nature that puts the capacity for technological advancement in private hands. The authors call for a multi-layered understanding of sovereignty, arguing that it holds the key to undermining rigid accounts of the relationship between carbon and democracy, energy and development, and energy and political expression. Furthermore, a critical focus on energy politics is crucial to wider debates on development and sustainability.

Contested Powers is essential reading for those wondering how energy resources are converted into political power and why we still value the energy we take from our surroundings more than the means of its extraction.

• 1. Introduction: recovering power from energy – reconsidering the linkages between energy and development - John-Andrew McNeish and Axel Borchgrevink
• 2. Oil extraction and territorial disputes in the Maya Biosphere Reserve - Virgilio Reyes
• 3. Gracias a díos y al gobierno: electric power struggles in Nicaraguan politics - Axel Borchgrevink
• 4. Wind at the margins of the state: autonomy and renewable energy development in southern Mexico - Cymene Howe, Dominic Boyer and Edith Barrera
• 5. Oil and environmental injustice in Venezuela: an ethnographic study of Punta Cardón - María Victoria Canino and Iselin Åsedotter Strønen
• 6. 'Everything moves with fuel': energy politics and the smuggling of energy resources - Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard
• 7. The continuous negotiation of the authority of oil- and gas-dependent states: the case of Bolivia - Fernanda Wanderley
• 8. Passive revolution? Social and political struggles surrounding Brazil's new-found oil reservoirs - Einar Braathen
• 9. Doing well in the eyes of capital: cultural transformation from Venezuela to Scotland - Owen Logan
• 10. Latin America transformed? - John-Andrew McNeish
• 11. From the King's Peace to transition society - Owen Logan and John-Andrew McNeish