Energy Islands: Metaphors of Power, Extractivism, and Justice in Puerto Rico

Energy Islands offers a critical examination of collective action against racial capitalism, colonialism, and climate disruption in Puerto Rico. It challenges the master narratives of the island as a tourist destination and site of natural disasters and highlights the struggles of local community groups to mobilize and transform power from the ground up. By decentering continental contexts and deconstructing damaging hierarchies, the book advocates for energy justice and other interconnected radical power transformations.

Format: Hardback
Length: 300 pages
Publication date: 15 June 2021
Publisher: University of California Press

Energy Islands provides a compelling and intricate portrayal of collective resistance against racial capitalism, colonialism, and climate disruption. Through a blend of historical and ethnographic research, this narrative challenges the dominant narratives of Puerto Rico as a tourist destination and a site of natural disasters. It reveals how fossil fuel economies are intricately linked with colonial practices and how local community groups in Puerto Rico have fought against energy coloniality to mobilize and transform power from the grassroots. Catalina M. de Onís meticulously documents how these groups work to decenter continental contexts and dismantle harmful hierarchies that devalue and exploit rural coastal communities. She highlights and collaborates with individuals who refuse to adhere to the cruel logic of empire by envisioning and implementing energy justice and other interconnected radical power transformations. Diving deep into the realms of energy, islands, and power, this book employs a diverse range of metaphors for alternative world-making.

Weight: 544g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520380615