Presentation short abstract

Preliminary results and reflections on a study of a planned green ammonia project in Campeche, Mexico, that examines how activities anticipating the green hydrogen initiative reshape local socio-spatial relations before construction begins, traced through Actor–Network Theory and fieldwork.

Presentation long abstract

As the global green hydrogen economy expands, new production sites are being planned and implemented in peripheral regions of Mexico to tap its vast renewable energy generation and export-oriented Power-to-X (PtX) potentials. Even before construction of the required infrastructures for desalination, energy generation, transmission, conversion, and terrestrial and maritime transport begins, socio-spatial relations in and around these sites are being reshaped through early practices of facilitation, obstruction, and adaptation. This study examines the “Marengo I” project in Campeche - a green ammonia production projected by a German–Mexican consortium - to explore how emerging trans-scalar actor relations related to the GH2 economy shape new forms of socio-spatial relations even before material interventions occur. The study applies Actor–Network Theory (ANT) to map of human and non-human actors involved in and affected by the project. Activities and relations among these actors are traced through extensive desk research, semi-structured interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted during field research in January 2026. In doing so, the study contributes to a growing body of scholarship in political ecology and political geography concerned with just and sustainable hydrogen transitions. At the conference, preliminary results on how transnational green hydrogen projects already reshape local spaces, along with methodological reflections, will be presented.