Poer Struggles Dignity, Value, and the Reneable Energy Frontier in Spain [Hardcover]

Wind energy is often portrayed as a panacea for the environmental and political ills brought on by an overreliance on fossil fuels, but this characterization may ignore the impact wind farms have on the regions that host them.Power Strugglesinvestigates the uneven allocation of risks and benefits in the relationship between the regions that produce this energy and those that consume it.

Jaume Franquesa considers Spain, a country where wind now constitutes the main source of energy production. In particular, he looks at the Southern Catalonia region, which has traditionally been a source of energy production through nuclear reactors, dams, oil refineries, and gas and electrical lines. Despite providing energy that runs the country, the region is still forced to the political and economic periphery as the power they produce is controlled by centralized, international Spanish corporations. Local resistance to wind farm installation in Southern Catalonia relies on the notion of dignity: the ability to live within one's means and according to one's own decisions.Power Strugglesshows how, without careful attention, renewable energy production can reinforce patterns of exploitation even as it promises a fair and hopeful future.

This is anthropological political economy at its best. A deep historical and ethnographic understanding of Catalan peasants and their struggles interlaced with invaluable discussions about key issues such as dignity, autonomy, land, energy, peripheripherality, and the contradictions of non-synchronicity and struggle. Franquesa offers us deep insights into the ongoing enigma of Catalan and Spanish politics.

Before they can become energy water, wind, and splitting atoms must land somewherein a turbine, on a grid, in a pipealways in places marked by prior histories of struggle over landscapes, livelihoods, and identities. This lucid and absolutely engaging book takes us into the heart of the encounter betwlÃs