Energy transition, Indigenous territory and extractivism in the global south and north
This UCL Anthropocene event will focus on energy transition, Indigenous territory and extractivism in Mexico, Syria and Spain.
Energy transition, Indigenous territory and extractivism in the global south and north
13 Feb 2025, 10:00 – 14:00
About the event:
The 21st century has been marked by the exacerbation of climate change and rapid depletion of fossil fuels, leading to the dual global energy crisis: it is increasingly expensive to extract fossil fuels and the extraction of this energy source is impacting global warming. The response this this has been push forward an ‘Energy Transition’ to renewable sources, a term first introduced by the German Óko-Institut in 1980 (Urkidi, 2015). However, this transition to address the dual crises of energy and climate emergency creates new problems that are frequently situated within Indigenous territories and landscapes, exacerbating already existing colonial and racist practices of extraction and segregation.
Recently, recognition has emerged that hegemonic narratives of energy transition and climate change policies not only criminalise the people with least responsibility for climate change, but also serve to further harm them (Rice et al, 2022, Sánchez Contreras, et al, 2023). Territories inhabited by marginalised populations are the prime sites for extractivism and the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects while high-consuming privileged groups occupy spaces protected from such interventions. These landscapes of injustice, entrenched by legacies of racial capitalism, produce new political-financial practices that are increasingly referred to as energy colonial. The discussion will focus on case studies in Mexico, Syria and Spain.
Programme
10am-10.10am, Coffee and Welcome.
Chair: Jennie Gamlin (UCL Institute for Global Health)
10:10am - 11:15am
Energy colonialism, climate emergency and extractivism in the global south and north.
Speakers: Josefa Sánchez Contreras (University of Granada) and Alberto Matarán (University of Granada)
11.15am -11.45am
Renewal energy megaprojects in the Golan Heights
Speaker: Muna Dajani (The London School of Economics and Political Science)
11.45am -12.15pm: coffee and light snacks
12:15pm - 12:45pm
Wind energy megaprojects and extractivism in the indigenous territories of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Oaxaca, México)
Speaker: Josefa Sánchez Contreras (University of Granada)
12.45pm – 1.15pm
Raw materials, indigenous peoples and energy transition
Speaker: Kate Dawson (Department of Geography, UCL)
1.15pm - 2pm
The Shetland Way: exploring connection between people, landscape and energy exploitation
Speaker: Marianne Brown (Bristol Energy Cooperative)
Q & A
This is an in-person event and the location will be confirmed to ticketholders (UCL Bloomsbury campus).
Dr Josefa Sánchez Contreras
Researcher, activist and essayist
University of Granada, Spain
Josefa belongs to the Zoque people of San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Researcher, activist and essayist, she holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Granada, Spain. Josefa Sánchez Contreras researches and writes about energy colonialism, racist dispossession, and the history of anti-colonial struggles of indigenous peoples. She is co-author of the book Energy Colonialism (Ona Ediciones, 2024) and coordinator of the book More and More Mökayas, Thoughts and Feelings of Contemporary Zoques (Ce-Acatl, 2022).
Dr. Alberto Matarán Ruiz
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Granada, Spain
Dr. Alberto Matarán Ruizis is currently working on the conflicts related to energy colonialism, green colonialism and on local self-sustainability. According to this, his methodological approach is based on decolonial, bioregional and agroecological perspectives, always considering the importance of participation for the transition processes in Europe and Latinamerica. He is co-author of the book Energy Colonialism (Ona Ediciones, 2024)
Dr. Muna Dajani
Fellow in Environment
London School of Economics, UK
Dr. Muna Dajani is an action researcher with a background in critical political ecology. Her work aims to understand environmental and water governance through decolonial and critical lenses. Her doctoral research focused on examining community struggles for rights to water and land resources in settler colonial contexts in Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, with special attention to how farming practices acquire political subjectivity. Dajani is currently a Fellow in Environment at the Geography and Environment Department at LSE. She is the lead editor of The Untold Story of the Golan Heights (I.B. Tauris, 2021), which resulted from her co-development and management of a collaboration project entitled Mapping Memories of Resistance between the LSE Middle East Centre, Birzeit University and Golan Heights based Al-Marsad.
Marianne Brown
Communications & Community Engagement Manager
Bristol Energy Cooperative
Marianne Brown is a writer and journalist now working in the community energy sector. Her book The Shetland Way: Community and Climate Crisis on My Father’s Islands is published by Borough Press (2025). She is based in the Southwest.
Kate Dawson
Lecturer in Environment, Politics and Society
UCL Department of Geography
Kate is interested in the relationships between society, space and geological materials. Her work is concerned with tracing out the politics of these connections, set in the context of urban processes and low-carbon transitions.
Kate's research has primarily focused on sand, as a material at the heart of built environments globally, and has more recently extended out to engage with the extractive geographies of platinum, polyhalite and diatomite, informed by insights from Ghana, South Africa, the UK and New Zealand.
Further information
Ticketing
Ticketed and Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes