Work

The Politics of Energy in Colonial Suriname

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: In colonial Suriname, a society shaped by slavery and indenture, the infrastructure and technologies of energy arrived as extensions of a colonial order that had long concentrated resources among elites. Drawing on colonial and company archives, this article shows how working-class Surinamese women and men engaged with gas and electricity, destroying street lamps one day while demanding connection the next. During the tumultuous 1930s, these communities protested against unequal access to power, exploitative labour practices at energy plants, and the racialized logics of privatization. As a monopoly in a small colonial society eager to expand its customer base, the European energy utility was compelled to respond to these demands. Yet even as energy use crossed from public into private space, working-class households continued to thwart colonial expectations that it would appease them, instead adapting these technologies to the survival of their own social worlds. Whether on the street or in the home, working-class engagement with energy revealed an ambivalence towards colonial modernity that challenged the terms of its imposition. This examination of how energy became a site of conflict shaped by a Caribbean plantation context thus extends energy history beyond its usual focus of the Global North.

Source: Past & Present

DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtag027

Author: Chelsea Schields

Institution: University of California, Irvine

Language: English

Topic: Caribbean history, culture, and politics

Subfield: Cultural Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Affordable and clean energy, Reduced inequalities, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,402