Compulsive Desires

Abstract

In this essay I analyse how energy dreams and epistemologies, constructed on cravings for productivity and profit, connect the spaces that epitomise the ‘Cartesian enclosure’ with the technologies and spaces of everyday life. I examine how destructive habits of extracting, procuring and consuming energy follow predictions that assume the inevitability of growth. Estimates that, even in the face of climate catastrophe, render the need for more energy inevitable and rely on finding new fixes rather than embracing other forms of living. Focusing on the case of lithium extraction in Atacama, I address the struggles sustained by indigenous communities for their lives, sovereignty and rights. Battles that emphasise how, in what has been described as ‘green colonialism’, the development of the ‘green energy futures’ too often is to the detriment of indigenous peoples.