Language and Energy

A workshop with Sandra Rátiva Gaona, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, examining a sustainable model for the generation and use of electricity in Puebla, Mexico.

To register for this event please email Janet Watson: j.c.e.watson@leeds.ac.uk

The Centre for Endangered Languages, Cultures, and Ecosystems is delighted to announce the Language and Energy workshop. The seminar is part of a Cheney Fellowship collaboration with Professor Omar Masera and his group at CIECO on the Morelia Campus of UNAM.

The running order for this event is as follows:

Introduction

 Language and Energy, Professor Jon Lovett, School of Geography, University of Leeds

Short video

La Energía de los Pueblos (in Spanish) produced by Marie Combe

In Mexico and Guatemala, energy production is carried out to the detriment of the people through privatization, dispossession of natural assets and violent imposition of power plants to satisfy industrial demand. Faced with megaprojects that threaten their territories and fabric of life, three communities struggling for a decent life made the commitment to produce their own electricity. Through the voices of those who are walking towards a just, popular and sustainable energy model, the documentary allows us to discover experiences and reflections that challenge the system, considering energy as a common good and a right for everyone.

Key note presentation by Sandra Rátiva-Gaona

Energy autonomy for the defense of the territory. An initiative from cooperativism in Sierra norte de Puebla. The presentation will summarise the actions that have been developed to advance implementation and consolidation of a decentralised, local and sustainable model for the generation and use of electrical energy in the mountains of the Sierra Norte in the state of Puebla, Mexico.

Sandra Rátiva Gaona, sociologist and master in sociology, PhD student at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Mother, feminist and ecologist, activist of the Congreso de los Pueblos in Colombia, and worker of the renewable energy cooperative Onergia in Mexico; she has researched community-popular forms and their struggles for social transformation and a dignified life from the perspective of political ecology. She has publications in CLACSO (2013) and the academic journals Trabalho Necessario (2020), Bajo el Volcán (2019), Cuadernos de Geografía (2012) among others.