Joint Preface to Wind and Power in the Anthropocene / Cymene Howe
and Dominic Boyer ix
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
1. Wind 23
2. Wind Power, Anticipated 43
3. Trucks 73
4. Wind Power, Interrupted 103
5. Species 137
6. Wind Power, in Suspension 170
Joint Conclusion to Wind and Power in the Anthropocene / Cymene
Howe and Dominic Boyer 191
Notes 197
References 223
Index 243
Cymene Howe is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University and author of Intimate Activism: The Struggle for Sexual Rights in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua, also published by Duke University Press. Ecologics is one half of the duograph Wind and Power in the Anthropocene; Energopolitics, by Dominic Boyer, is the other half.
"Research included interviews carried out with key representatives
of international, national, regional, and local interests,
supporting a richly nuanced account of often emotionally charged
encounters. Howe balances multiple viewpoints, ranging from those
gained though formal appointments and official press conferences in
Mexico City to those observed in restaurant meetings and
confrontations between protesters and police on the Isthmus. The
chapters oscillate between chronological telling of events—from
wind power anticipated, to the project interrupted and ultimately
suspended—and consideration of three other-than-human forces that
played key roles in the unfolding of events: wind, trucks, and
species. Recommended. All readers."
*Choice*
"Howe and Boyer look back on the past with fresh eyes. . . . Howe
and Boyer’s project has many virtues. For one, it articulates the
perils of corporate wind economies. For another, it positions
Indigenous communities (like the Zapotec) not as outmoded objects
for anthropological inquiry, but (á la Gayatri Spivak) as 'active
[producers] of culture.' Most importantly, perhaps, is how Wind and
Power in the Anthropocene documents alternatives to corporate wind
ventures like Mareña. The book highlights, for example,
community-based initiatives that also seek to harness the awesome
power of istmeño wind—projects that promote communal welfare and
environmental justice."
*Public Books*
"The duograph is an interesting and novel way to approach
collaborative writing, which I enjoyed engaging with. . . . Howe
discusses, through her vivid writing style, what happens when
distinct imaginaries of environmental care and environmental harm
come into conflict, examining how wind energy—an antidote to the
Anthropocene—became both failure and success."
*Journal of Latin American Geography*
“In Wind and Power in the Anthropocene, a two-volume ‘duograph,’
Cymene Howe, in Ecologics, and Dominic Boyer, in Energopolitics,
explore the development of wind parks during the early twenty-first
century on the isthmus of Tehuantepec…. One of the most refreshing
components of their collaborative and individual writing is the
clarity of their position as researchers in this project as they
circulated among politicians, indigenous peoples, and corporate
officials. It is a necessary exercise, as they argue, for
appreciating the entrenchment of the wind in local political and
social relations.”
*Technology and Culture*
“Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer have crafted two eloquent accounts
of the turbulent, aeolian politics that unfolded during their
16-month-long field research in Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
between 2009 and 2013.... Ecologics...is perhaps the most evocative
half of the duograph.”
*Anthropology Book Forum*
“[Ecologics and Energopolitics] make strong arguments on political
processes in the field of wind energy in Mexico...[and] are
important contributions to an anthropology of energy, a still
growing field within the discipline.”
*Anthropos*
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