Dear readers,
For too long, discussions about energy have been confined to the realms of technicians and engineers. The energy we consume and the infrastructures sustaining its seemingly endless supply—whether fossil fuels or electricity—have largely remained out of sight and out of mind for much of modern history. As anthropologist Jaume Franquesa points out, the invisibility of energy in our industrial societies is striking: energy infrastructure becomes noticeable only when it fails, despite the tenfold increase in energy consumption over the past century that has made it central to our modern experience. This ‘silence’ within much of the social sciences, along with the general invisibility of energy, has had problematic consequences. On one hand, it has left energy discussions devoid of political and power analyses, reinforcing the notion that energy belongs in the hands of physicists and engineers and thus ignoring the power dynamics embedded within it. On the other, it has influenced how we approach conflicts surrounding energy systems, infrastructure, and projects, and terms like “energy justice” or “energy transitions.” These struggles often underplay the historical and political contexts in which the energy transition is being imagined, designed, and implemented.
In simple terms, the hegemonic framing of the energy transition—including variations like the “just energy transition” or “energy justice” and “energy security”—often reaffirms rather than challenges the core tenets of capitalist modernity: sustained economic growth, a narrow and linear definition of progress, and a mentality that separates and puts culture over nature. The energy transition models promoted by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and others point out that, focus more on reducing atmospheric CO₂ levels than on addressing the industrial production and global accumulation systems that cause these emissions in the first place. Despite numerous reports from these institutions celebrating record-breaking adoption rates of “renewable” energy and the growing number of electric vehicles globally, there is no substantial evidence that a true transition—by their own definitions—is underway. The increased integration of renewable sources has yet to meaningfully shift the global dependency on fossil fuels. Paradoxically, most activists and NGOs continue down this path, advocating for a global energy transition while often overlooking the need for a deeper reexamination of how energy is conceptualized. This oversight reinforces problematic narratives, such as framing Indigenous, peasant, worker, and other subaltern groups as ‘regressive’ or ‘selfish’ for resisting “renewable energy” projects on their lands, thereby obscuring the reimposition of colonial dynamics under the green facade of the transition. Other problematic narratives include the formulation of ‘renewable energy’ and renewability itself, which not only obscures the fossilized dependency of low-carbon infrastructure such as solar and wind, but also fails to account for the new mining frontiers required to sustain this process).
It is no surprise then that energy has become a key driver of landscape transformation worldwide, reshaping spatial and temporal dimensions across various geographies. Capitalism’s relentless pursuit of perpetual economic growth, coupled with an increasing demand for energy, has turned attention toward ‘new’ extractive frontiers as the era of cheap energy—characterized by abundant, easily accessible fossil fuels—draws to a close. This shift signals a threshold marked by a need to sustain our high-energy modernity with less abundant energy sources (i.e. moving from fossil fuels to ‘renewable energy’). At the same time, billionaires are promoting visions of colonizing Mars or the Moon, raising questions about whether (“green”) capitalism can survive or even transcend Earth’s planetary limits, while activists and NGOs continue to advocate for a somewhat empty formulation of a ‘just energy transition’ that often translates into a re-formulation of the old colonial notion that was already embedded in the development enterprise: a perpetual ‘need’ for energy that remains unquestionable as the debate centers on alternatives forms of rather than alternatives to the energy and this hegemonic and corporate-led form of transition.
Within the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), this discussion has also remained on the periphery. For years, activists, land defenders, and grassroots struggles often overlooked energy as a critical point of contention, relegating it primarily to the domain of state policy and administration. Recently, some movements have begun to call for the recognition of energy as a human right, a process that is problematic, to say the least. This proposal risks resembling a call for “just colonialism” by encoding colonial structures within the framework of human rights. Is this the direction we want to pursue? Movements are justified in questioning this, as it is clearly not the intended goal; so, what is? The aim, we believe, is to open up discussions on energy’s colonial origins and, from there, develop a new language that enables us to critically engage with energy itself. This periodical seeks to make the concept of energy “strange.” Put differently, to truly understand the coloniality of energy, we must first open up the question of what energy is, how we approach it, and what its deeper implications are.
Our aim with this periodical is to highlight cases that challenge the technical and hegemonic framing of energy. While several contributions of this periodical are still dealing with some of the challenges brought about by capitalist modernity and its colonial formulation of what energy is, some of the contributions are now focusing on challenging this hegemonic formulation of energy which insists on reducing it to a ‘thing’ and to understand it in relational terms, that is, to see energy, like all entities that make up the world, as not having an intrinsic, separate existence by itself (Escobar, 2020). Movements and alternatives around the world are denouncing green extractivism, the use of energy projects to dispossess communities of their territories, and the forced “modernization” of their poverty to meet the unrealistic standards of global decarbonization. Most of these alternatives see the energy transition for what it truly is—a colonial framework designed to uphold the same principles that have driven capitalism for the past 500 years. In response, alternatives across the world are reconceptualizing energy as a key concern and as part of their struggles for autonomy.
In the first contribution, Soumya Dutta gives us a broad overview of our current epoch of climate inaction and some of the main challenges that both the need to address the urgency and yet, to not act hastily in the face of global climate catastrophe entails. Dutta offers a detailed contribution of the many ways in which the hegemonic energy transition has failed, and the enormous challenge that this poses from a global perspective. His account, however, shows that while there is a stagnation and an impasse at the highest levels of politics, there is movement and hope coming from below.
In a second contribution, Christine Dann narrates a brief albeit rich history of electrification in New Zealand, clearly revealing its colonial origins, showing how the New Zealand government took a line from the Colonizer’s Playbook (in this case James Cook) which is still operational on the formulation of modernity and development, which still relies on the electrification and now, the rapid rise of other logistical and artificial intelligence challenges in the country, an issue that we now face at the global level. Dann clearly shows how the formulations of the likes of Lenin or Zola about granting energy access to everyone ought to be challenged in our current state of politics, placing our bets on a philosophy of enough rather than excess.
In a third contribution, Pablo Fernádnez writes about his experience working with the Tosepan Cooperative in the Northortiental Sierra of Puebla, in Mexico, where Indigenous communities have come together to reconceptualize their relationship to energy. Fernadez narrates his experience in the project of Energia para el Yeknemillis (Energy for good living) showing how the indigenous communities of the region have come together to reject the imposition of ‘death projects’ in favor of ‘life projects’, rooting their alternative vision of a good life into a relational formulation of energy, rejecting at the same time the construction of a large sub-electrical station and retaining their autonomy in the process.
The contribution is followed by an interview/dialogue between Hamza Hamouchene, Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, and Yvonne Phyllis in which they discuss the concept of “green colonialism” and its impact on energy and climate justice within the Arab region. Through an intersectional lens, the article examines how colonial and capitalist legacies continue to shape environmental policies, leading to exploitation and displacement under the guise of sustainability. Key themes include the region’s historical integration into the global capitalist system, the creation of “sacrifice zones” for resource extraction, and the impact of “green” initiatives that replicate old imperial dynamics. The discussion critiques the concept of a just transition co-opted by neoliberal agendas and argues for a truly transformative approach that centers anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and decolonial principles. By advocating for reparations and recognition of local communities’ rights, the article calls for a reimagining of energy and climate justice grounded in solidarity and sovereignty.
Finally, Christine Dann offers a review of two books that reveal some of the main challenges that the energy transition poses for the immediate future. On the one hand, the review reveals the continued dependence on fossil fuels for renewable energy production, while also sheds light on the impossibility of simply decarbonizing the status quo capitalism.
Our hope is that this periodical engages with key questions and concerns that inspire a more relational, convivial, decolonial, and radical approach to understanding what energy is and how an energy transition might be imagined, designed, and implemented—far removed from technocratic and hegemonic formulations of these concepts and processes. We do not see this periodical as a ‘final’ word on the issue but rather as part of an emerging praxis and way of thinking that, like the Zapatistas, allows us to walk while asking questions. We invite you to read, participate, and continue exploring these questions with us.
As part of our collective reflection on the topic, we produced a longer and deepest editorial note titled Unpacking the coloniality of energy, seeking alternatives from below (Extended editorial note), that can be considered an article on its own. You can read it in this link.
In solidarity,
The 15th GTA Periodical Editorial Team
(Carlos Tornel, Christine Dann, Vasna Ramasar, Shrishtee Bajpai, Franco Augusto and Mugdha Trifaley)
