The social power of wind : the role of participation and social entrepreneurship in overcoming barriers for community wind farm development : lessons from the Ixtepec community wind farm project in Mexico
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The global transition to renewable energies is increasingly driven by wind energy, which now experiences its biggest growth in the emerging and developing countries. The development of large-scale wind farms raises concerns over often neglected territorial and social dimensions of wind energy development – important issues in areas like the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, southern Mexico, where indigenous communities often still practice collective land ownership. As a response to the perceived lack of local communities' participation in both the process and benefit distribution of wind energy development in this region, the indigenous governance body of the city of Ixtepec approved a proposal to pursue a community wind farm in cooperation with the Yansa Group (comprised of a foundation and a social enterprise)in 2011. This thesis investigates how the approaches of participation and social entrepreneurship could enable the community of Ixtepec to overcome the barriers that have impeded community wind farm development in Mexico so far. A case study design with qualitative research methods is used to explore and analyse the Ixtepec community wind farm model. Having a constructivist understanding of social phenomena this involves the analysis of power relations shaped and constructed by the project model. The analysis shows that a diverse participatory approach focusing on the empowerment of marginalised sections of Ixtepec's community as well as the overall community development is carried out. The analysis suggests that there are at least three dimensions of social entrepreneurship (organisational, individual and collective) that enable the Ixtepec community to overcome financial, capacity-related and legal barriers related to community wind farm development, as well as to ensure their ownership and control over their territories. While the creation of new organisational participatory structures could increase the actors' capacity for collective action and shape their own development, this could also lead to new forms of marginalisation or mask internal unequal power relations. This research could provide important lessons for how the transition to renewable energies could be designed in a socially-just manner.
Author: Julia Hoffmann
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2156969905