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- Convenors:
-
Paola Velasco Herrejon
(University of Oslo)
Gerardo Alonso Torres Contreras (University of Sussex)
- Stream:
- B: Agriculture, natural resources & environment
- Location:
- F5
- Start time:
- 27 June, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Given tensions, contradictions, and lack of consent from social sectors behind green transformations, this panel aims to discuss current trends, legislative instruments, and other participation schemes that challenge asymmetric power relations while promoting renewable energy in developing countries
Long Abstract:
A sense of urgency behind green transformations has brought a myriad of renewable energy projects to the Global South in the last two decades. These projects have been implemented on a massive scale through internationally-financed corporations, in a top-down technocratic manner with full state support. The tensions, contradictions and lack of consent from different social sectors behind this development intervention have provoked a confrontation of actors across scales and spaces suggesting a politics of renewable energy for any specific setting. Promoting common interest in sustainable development and environmental problems would be more effective if solutions resulted in everyone being better of. Yet, this is rarely the case since strategies to reduce carbon emissions usually result in winners and losers, and renewable energies, are no exception.
Although some tools have been created to provide local communities with an opportunity to articulate their demands and viewpoints, barriers to effective community engagement still persist in different spaces, with vulnerable groups, systematically excluded from governance decisions. Accumulated evidence concludes that power disparities, lying on socio-cultural and political elements, shape these patterns, which, in turn, are reflected in socially unsustainable outcomes.
The proposed panel aims to invite participants to discuss current trends, legislative instruments, and other participation schemes that may shed light into finding ways to promote renewable in developing countries while engaging with the ways in which openings for resistance and the articulation of social demands transform patterns of exclusion and social injustice in order to challenge asymmetric power relations within green transformations.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Carl Middleton (Chulalongkorn University) Saw John Bright (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network) Alec Scott (Karen Environmental Social Action Network )
Paper short abstract:
This paper identifies and analyzes three divergent pathways for water and energy governance being pursued in the Salween basin, Myanmar with implications for: peace, federalism and resource sharing; decentralization and community participation; and food, water and energy security.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, we present a pathway analysis of water and energy governance along the Salween River in Myanmar. Through a political economy lens, we examine how divergent visions for the basin are being formulated and acted upon, including the networks of actors engaged, the discourses produced, the decision-making processes invoked, and the material practices on-the-ground. We draw on an extensive literature review, expert interviews conducted over 2016 and 2017, and participatory engagement in meetings.
We analyze three divergent pathways: 1) Pursuit of large hydropower dams before a political agreement for peace between the central government and ethnic groups is complete; 2) Political dialogue and genuine peace followed by deliberation on resource governance which may (or may not) include large hydropower dams; and 3) A local development pathway, such as the Salween Peace Park in Karen State, which combines resistance to large hydropower dams, with an emphasis on community development initiatives including natural resources management and decentralized electricity generation, and the integration of ethnic customary practices and management structures.
We see the pursuit of a development "pathway", and the dismissal of another, as a highly political process, undertaken in a context where power is asymmetrical and claims to political legitimacy complex. In light of these divergent visions for the future of the Salween in Myanmar, we argue that there is a need for careful consideration of multiple policy goals, including related to: peace, federalism and security; decentralization and community participation; and food, water and energy security.
B. Mariana Galicia (UNAM)
Paper short abstract:
Wind energy in Mexico is not sustainable. After ten years, wind farms settled in the state of Oaxaca have not produced socioeconomic improvements in the region and even have generated social opposition. For this reason, it is necessary to generate strategies towards a sustainable energy proposal.
Paper long abstract:
Climate change represents a boundless threat to international society because of the consequences that are already evident today, however, it also represents a great opportunity to develop alternative energy sources, environmentally friendly. That is the case of wind energy that in recent years has been strongly promoted in many countries. Particularly in Mexico, the state of Oaxaca has proven to have great wind potential and since 2006 several parks have been developed in the area. However, the management of the projects has generated opposition from those that directly affect this type of energy proposals. In addition, according to official data, the socioeconomic conditions of the population have not been improved.
For the better integration of renewable energy in our societies, it is necessary to take up the experiences around community management of natural resources. That is, strategies that promote the active participation of the actors involved, as well as strategies to boost the local economy, reactivate productive processes. Therefore, increase the possibility of substantially improving the social conditions of the population and guarantee the necessary proliferation of alternative energy projects in the face of the climatic emergency.
Paola Velasco Herrejon (University of Oslo)
Paper short abstract:
By bringing together Sen's capability approach and Gaventa's method to power analysis, this paper presents a framework for analysing power dynamics that underlie citizens' roles in indigenous localities and the actions of international corporations within Mexico's developing wind energy sector
Paper long abstract:
By bringing together Sen's Capability Approach (Sen 1985, 1999, 2009) and Gaventa's method to power analysis, also known as the "power cube" (Gaventa 2006), this paper attempts to present an evolving and flexible research design that combines qualitative and quantitative methods to collect information of differing stakeholders perceptions about public engagement and governance decisions in the wind energy sector. To make this case, this paper will first contextualise wind farm social opposition in developing countries and provide an overview of current methodologies that aim at assessing community engagement in this context. Subsequently, the paper will present a mixed-methods design that employs Sen's concepts of agency and capabilities to understand individual's perceptions of well-being of all actors that have a stake in wind energy planning, and introduces Gaventa's Power Cube as a tool to analyse associative aspects, such as power dynamics that may be constraining or enhancing local communities valued ways of public engagement. The paper will finally outline the main findings that resulted of employing this mixed-methods approach in a Case Study in Southern Mexico.