Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the linkages between environmental justice, energy justice and energy rights. Basing on an ethnographic case from Chiapas, it analyses an alternative theorization of a human right to electricity access, where electricity is a part of “Mother Earth” and a non-marketable entitlement

Paper long abstract:

Emerged less than a decade ago, the field of energy justice has been rapidly evolving and has already proven itself as a valuable framework to address distributive, procedural and recognition types of justice in the context of a variety of energy-related issues. Although it shares many assumptions and concerns with both environmental and climate justice, some scholars have also stressed its peculiarities and thus originality. First, energy justice recognizes that although low-income communities from developing countries have contributed little to climate change, they bear its negative consequences disproportionately. Second, it highlights how these communities represent “sacrifice zones” as they are likely to experience the impacts of large-scale energy developments, regardless if renewable or not. Third, energy justice stresses the importance of participation in decision-making as a way to foster energy democracy, by recognizing affected stakeholders and communities a decisive role in the processes that concern energy access and management. In this paper, we focus on the right to electricity access. We present the ethnographic case of “Luz y Fuerza del Pueblo”, a civil resistance movement established in Chiapas, Mexico, that struggles for universal access to electricity. We illustrate the activists’ non-commodified view of nature and the role of custodian of the cosmos they attribute to humanity. We explain how these elements represent the foundation of an “alternative” theorization of a human right to electricity access, one that considers electricity both a part of “Mother Earth” and an entitlement that cannot be marketable.