Emotional energy communities: Centering emotions and feelings within energy transitions in southern Mexico

Abstract

Energy communities are key to understanding the drivers and impacts of energy transformations. However, research focused on profiling and evaluating energy communities has often overlooked the fundamental role of emotions and emotional processes during energy transitions. To address this, our article draws together the Latin American concept of ‘emotional communities’ with the prevailing European concept of ‘energy communities’; resulting in an enriched term of ‘emotional energy communities’ in which the emotional dimensions of energy are centered. Looking at two previously non-electrified multi-ethnic communities in the south of Mexico, we identified three crucial energy moments: a) living without electricity; b) counting on electricity produced by off-grid solar systems, and c) returning to living without electricity but now with the knowledge of what electricity enables. We retrospectively explored the emotions associated with these three energy moments via in-depth interviews and focus groups, finding that electrification was an inflection point for these two communities. The solar interventions generated new identities, and a range of positive and negative emotions, which fluctuated over time and varied by factors such as gender, age, and ethnicity. By looking at emotional processes, rather than singular emotional states, we were able to conduct a more complex analysis of both individual and community-level lived experiences and the impacts of energy interventions. In doing so, we highlight the importance of considering emotions within energy studies, as well as the need to look beyond households as a unit of analysis, particularly outside of westernized contexts where public and private spheres are blurred.