Clean development or the development of dispossession? The political economy of wind parks in Southern Mexico

Chris Hesketh

doi:10.1177/2514848621991764

Abstract

Through an investigation of the political economy of wind park development in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, I explore the contested meaning of environmental justice. I contend that, despite their seemingly benign image, wind parks in Oaxaca operate within a spatially abstracted, colonial epistemology of capital-centred development. This involves a remaking of space and an appropriation of nature on behalf of capital. Concomitantly, it also involves a process of dispossession for Indigenous communities, foreclosing alternative pathways of development. I contrast this project of place-making with a subaltern-centred conception of environmental justice informed by Indigenous resistance.

Highlights

In this article, I explore the notion of environmental justice and its relationship to projects of clean development
Via an investigation into the political economy of wind park development in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, I explore the contested place-making that such projects imply
Climate change is evidence that the world is changing at a rapid pace, yet the urgency of action and the political will to confront this problem has still not fully dawned on most people nor resulted in sustained and meaningful deeds in terms of an alternative political economy

Summary

Introduction

I explore the notion of environmental justice and its relationship to projects of clean development. Via an investigation into the political economy of wind park development in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, I explore the contested place-making that such projects imply (with contestation coming from largely Indigenous social groups). I respond to a recent call for more empirically-grounded research on carbon offsetting, while putting such place-specific empirical work into broader debates about the meaning of environmental justice and the neoliberalisation of nature (Boyd and Goodman, 2011; Castree, 2008; Corbera and Martin, 2015: 2023). Wind parks have been identified as an empirically under-examined element of critical work that looks at the nexus between neoliberalism and nature (Siamanta, 2019).

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