Energy sovereignty storytelling: Art practices, community-led transitions, and territorial futures in Latin America

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we study forms of storytelling about energy sovereignty retrieved from community-based art and their implications for energy justice formulations in Latin America. Based on the visual and discursive analysis of five contemporary Latin American artistic practices, the article shows that their poetic and political engagements with energy production, consumption, and distribution build what we call “energy sovereignty storytelling.” That is, understandings of energy justice that territorialize energy technologies, thus defying Western-centered views on energy and energy infrastructure in a context of marked transitions. Combining insights from art analysis in STS with concepts from energy humanities and technological sovereignty studies, this research discusses four aspects that characterize these emergent energy storytelling practices. By bringing these four aspects together, this study shows that territory-attuned, community-based art research highlights understandings of energy beyond corporate extractivism and market interests. In this way, activating new modes of storytelling in relation to energy affords novel understandings of energy and energy infrastructure that can contribute to attaining a just and equitable energy transition in Latin America, where ancestral and local more-than-human communities can participate actively in shaping energy presents and futures.