“Colonialismo energético” y “Despojo racializado”: comunidades indígenas en defensa del territorio frente al despliegue de parques eólicos a gran escala en el Istmo de Tehuantepec, México

Abstract

This thesis elaborates and discusses the sociological categories: energetic colonialism and racialized dispossession. The main case study is the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on these sociological categories, the deployment of wind farms on communal territories of the Ikoots and Zapotec indigenous peoples is analyzed during the years from 2000 to 2023. The global context being the climate emergency and the energy crisis, considering this scenario a corporate energy transition is promoted that drives the deployment of large-scale renewable megaprojects, their impacts and limits are rigorously discussed in the results of the thesis. Although the central focus is to analyze energy colonialism in the Global South, the need has arisen to present a case of the periphery of the Global North, of which the province of Granada, Spain, refers, in this region renewable megaprojects are currently being deployed large scale, mainly photovoltaic and wind. This as a research strategy to account for the global dynamics of energy colonialism. In this framework, racialized dispossession is introduced as a substantial difference between the Global North and South. The global dimension of energy colonialism has allowed the two case studies to be systematized through six dimensions that are identified as patterns of domination that are repeated in both territories of the Global South and North, of which they refer: 1) Geopolitical Dimension; 2) Economic – financial; 3) Power, violence, and decision-making; 4) Land grabbing and dispossession; 5) Territorial impacts and on commons; 6) Resistance and socioterritorial conflicts.