Extractive subjectivity in a corporate coal mining site in Colombia

Jakobsen, Line Jespersgaard

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.07.007

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…That indicates the companies' abilities, through the ample resources that are often at their disposal, to "veto" accountability efforts and protect themselves from prosecution. Corporations are often deeply entangled into political elite networks of governments and businesses that build on colonial legacies, modernist ideologies, and, in some cases, the use of violence in the shadows to quell opposition (Brock and Dunlap, 2018;Jakobsen, 2020Jakobsen, , 2021. Payne et al (2020: 124-130) frame this as veto power through political linkages.…”

Section: Barriers For Corporate Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The emerging corporate turn in transitional justice

Jakobsen¹

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

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This essay reviews recent developments in transitional justice (TJ) scholarship that represent an emerging corporate turn in TJ. TJ has traditionally focused primarily on states and state-like actors, a movement that has gone hand in hand with the increasing standardization of TJ as a field of practice. Highlighting some of the limits to this model of TJ, scholars have since early 2000s been calling for the need to include economic actors in the TJ system. These four books that have all been published between 2020 and 2022 reflect a new momentum for this movement within TJ scholarship. They all highlight, in different ways, how complimentary innovative mechanisms and creative legal combinations have led and can lead to holding economic actors accountable for past abuse. Corporate accountability has been a blind spot in the increasingly standardized approach to TJ, but this emerging corporate turn represents a possibility to innovating the TJ standard to include “new” actors as subjects of accountability. All books, however, also show that this is far from a straightforward process as it involves transforming the deeply engrained and rigid international law and human rights system, which have usually protected economic elites and focused on states.

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Section: Barriers For Corporate Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The emerging corporate turn in transitional justice

Jakobsen¹

2023

Cooperation and Conflict

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“…The open pits, 150 km rail line, and port encroach on community lands (see Figure 2). Cerrejón has also polluted La Guajira's scarce water sources with heavy metals, deforested the fragile dry tropical forest, and tainted the topsoil and air with coal particulate matter (Jakobsen, 2020(Jakobsen, , 2022Ulloa, 2020). Coal mining also catalyzed the arrival of right-wing paramilitary groups, who have regularly threatened and attacked Wayúu and Afro-descendant environmental activists (Ramírez Boscán, 2007).…”

Section: The Rise Of Coalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2018). 12 This reflects only a fraction of Cerrejón's corporate governance apparatus in La Guajira, including environmental management, development, and security (Puerta Silva & Carmona Castillo, 2020;Jakobsen, 2020Jakobsen, , 2022.…”

Section: The Wind Rushmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-opted energy transitions: Coal, wind, and the corporate politics of decarbonization in Colombia

Banks,

Schwartz

2023

Journal of Political Ecology

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Latin America has long been a key site of resource extraction, acting as a sacrifice zone for the Global North's fossil fuel needs. Now, the region is pushing for an "energy transition" by opening its own electric grid to renewable sources. Using a case study from La Guajira, in Northeastern Colombia, we argue that energy corporations are appropriating and deploying the concept of energy transitions to fashion themselves as climate conscious, post-extractive, and environmentally caring actors. Based on ethnographic evidence from coal mining and wind energy companies, we argue that the corporate co-optation of the energy transition agenda plays out in public narratives and representations, environmental projects, and community relations. Drawing on insights from the political ecology of energy transitions and low-carbon infrastructures, we contend that corporate transition agendas are more than smoke and mirrors; they are tangible and consequential processes that perpetuate environmental conflicts, sustain forms of "green" accumulation, and foreclose the possibility of a just transition. In unraveling the competing yet entangled agendas of coal and wind companies, this article renders visible the continuities between fossil fuels and renewable energy in Latin America and beyond.

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Water throughout the green energy transition: Hydrosocial dimensions of coal, natural gas, and lithium

Cousins,

Cantor,

Turley

2024

WIREs Water

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Energy transitions are reshaping hydrosocial relations. How they will be reshaped, however, depends on location and water's material relationship to other resources and industrial activities embedded within energy transitions. To highlight this, we focus on three different resources—coal, natural gas, and lithium—to signal how the water–energy nexus will be reworked in a transition away from fossil fuels. We examine the water–coal nexus as an example of a resource relationship that is transitioning out, or that is being moved away from in the green energy transition. Natural gas represents the “bridge fuel” used through the transition. Lithium illustrates a resource inside the green transition, as it is a fundamental material for green technologies in the transition to a low‐carbon future. Coal, natural gas, and lithium each have their own material impacts to water resources that stem from their industrial lifecycle and different implications for communities shaped by coal, natural gas, and lithium activities. To explore this, we review each of these resources' connection to water, their legal and regulatory dimensions, and their impact on communities and water justice. We argue that the energy transition is also a hydrosocial transition that will create uneven water‐related benefits and burdens. To maximize sustainability and equity, efforts to decarbonize energy systems must examine the localized, place‐based hydrosocial relations that differentially affect communities.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Rights to Water

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Extractive subjectivity in a corporate coal mining site in Colombia

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

The emerging corporate turn in transitional justice

The emerging corporate turn in transitional justice

Co-opted energy transitions: Coal, wind, and the corporate politics of decarbonization in Colombia

Water throughout the green energy transition: Hydrosocial dimensions of coal, natural gas, and lithium

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