Abstract

JENSS, Alke Christine. The governance of expansion: transnational energy infrastructures in Latin America. Perf. latinoam. [online]. 2021, vol.29, n.58, 00007.  Epub June 19, 2023. ISSN 0188-7653.  https://doi.org/10.18504/pl2958-007-2021.

Transformations towards “ecological” infrastructures are often highly contested and reproduce social conflict. To enrich the debate on such contested infrastructure expansions, I combine political economy and political ecology approaches with literature on the “politics of operation” and logistics. This paper analyses renewable energy infrastructures within the Mesoamerican Project, which foments the production of transnational territories and implies a growing role of global corporations in local social struggles. The central argument is that the contestation of such projects is complicated by the growing priority of circulation in security policies (i.e., protection of infrastructure nodes, energy corridors), which may even induce forced displacement.

Keywords : governance; multi-scalar; SIEPAC; Mexico; transnational infrastructures; energy logistics.

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