Energy Justice in Latin America: Reflections, Lessons and Critiques

This book presents valuable insights, critiques and contributions from energy researchers focused on Latin American case studies. Their work not only enriches the understanding of energy justice but also addresses a significant gap in the current academic literature.

Since it was coined as an academic term more than ten years ago, energy justice has experienced accelerated growth as a relevant and widely recognised concept that allows energy researchers to engage with diverse energy issues. Nevertheless, energy justice still faces theoretical and empirical gaps, including a lack of diversity in author demographics and case studies coming from regions in the Global South. Against this backdrop, this book brings together 30 authors whose research draws from Latin American countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Peru, as well as wider regional perspectives. The selected case studies combine low-carbon transitions, regulations and technologies with issues of gender, indigeneity, (neo)colonialism, autonomy, poverty and inequality. Importantly, the chapters examine how energy justice might influence existing approaches and worldviews on sustainability, which strive for just and clean future energy systems by redressing regional inequalities and tackling the global challenge of climate change. As such, Energy Justice in Latin America opens new spaces for a growing research community to redefine and jointly construct a more complete, regionally specific notion of energy justice.

Highlighting the ways in which the discussion included in this book resonates with other regions in the Global South, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy justice, energy poverty, energy democracy and energy policy, as well as Latin American studies more broadly.

Adolfo Mejía Montero is a lecturer in Energy, Society, and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, where he is part of the School of Social and Political Science’s Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS). He also serves as the director of the MSc programme in Energy, Society, and Sustainability within the School of Geosciences. With an interdisciplinary background in physics, engineering, and human geography, Adolfo has contributed to a wide range of research projects focused on energy justice, low-carbon energy projects in indigenous territories, wind and solar power, mixed-methods research, and sustainable energy systems, particularly in Latin America and the United Kingdom. He has also worked as a research consultant, collaborating with companies like Sunamp, which specializes in heat batteries using phase-change materials, to support innovation in the energy sector.