Paper short abstract:

Consensus to transit from a highly oil dependent society to a more sovereign energy matrix in Uruguay hides emergent environmental and territorial conflicts regarding the goals of energy production and use. This paper shows how energy is alienated from lay understandings, real settings and social power in the name of a “First world” national horizon.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about what anthropology as a critical discipline might contribute to the current energy transition from fossil to post-fossil civilization. It focuses, firstly, on the concepts of energy expressed by those who research, teach and manage energy systems in Uruguay. I argue that there is a modernist division between machine-oriented energy and individual human-oriented "free" energy; and both of them do confront a perceptual and conceptual form of energy as movement and action, embedded in daily activities, that works as a baseline in the appropriation of energy resources. The paper follows by describing environmental conflicts, resulting from state policies towards a more diversified energy matrix aimed to give response to a steady increase in energy demand, and simultaneously to escape from oil dependency. It depicts conflicts in the building of new territories of renewable energies (wind-mills, biomass plants and bio-fuels plantations) and potential conflicts in re-making fossil fuels territories (off-shore oil exploration, natural gas terminals, and coal mining). The discussion does not avoid the dilemmas faced by the nation-state between a natural resources export-oriented development model and local claim for environmental protection and social equity, which seems to be an expression of a deeper interested groups and class struggle.

The paper concludes by suggesting that anthropologists must complement energy consumption studies (mostly at household level) with a focus on energy production systems to reveal the relation between energy and social power hidden by techno-economic arguments in the midst of a great transformation.