Reclaiming Energy Flows: Energy GeoHumanities and the Socio-Ecologies of Rivers in Latin American Hydro-Modernities

Abstract

This article explores fluvial forms of art and activism to reclaim new meanings of energy at a time when questions about the energy transition are central in geography studies and global environmental discourses. Departing from Serpent River Book by Carolina Caycedo, we propose affective, embodied, and creative entanglements to understand energy flows in river ecologies in Latin America for an exploration of energy geohumanities. We then discuss the methodology of this energy geohumanities project in our engagements with Caycedo’s art, reflecting on our sedimentary writing and thinking process enacted throughout the article. By centering this article on what energies art conjures and releases in affective and political terms, we explore the meanings of doing energy geohumanities in the deployment of a poetics of embodied tensions between flow and containment and between aerial and immersive views that challenge the dichotomies of subject/object, nature/culture and geo/human. Through unfolding a “sedimentary blog writing” method based on geo-mimicry, we hope to make a case for how entangled thinking and writing offer a novel approach to examining the multiple meanings of energy beyond electricity in the extractive zones of hydro-modernity.

 

目前, 能源转型是地理学研究和全球环境叙事的核心问题。本文探讨了艺术和激进主义的河流形式, 从而重拾能源的新含义。基于Carolina Caycedo的《Serpent River》, 我们提出了情感的、具身的、创造性的关联, 以此去理解拉丁美洲河流生态中的能源流动, 进而探索能源地理人文学。结合Caycedo的艺术创作, 本文讨论了该能源地理人文学创作的方法论, 反思了我们在整篇文章中的沉积式写作和思考过程。关注了能源艺术所唤起和释放的情感和政治。在流动与包容、空中与身临其境之间具身矛盾的诗歌写作过程中, 我们探索了开展能源地理人文学研究的含义, 挑战了主体与客体、自然与文化、地球与人类的二分法。我们展示了基于地理模拟的“沉积式博客写作”方法, 旨在证明: 在水电现代性的开采领域, 为了探讨电力以外能源的多重含义, 思考和写作能提供新的方法。

 

Este artículo explora las formas fluviales del arte y el activismo para reclamar nuevos significados de la energía en un tiempo en el que los interrogantes sobre la transición energética son medulares en los estudios geográficos y en los discursos ambientales de proyección global. Partiendo del Serpent River Book de Carolina Caycedo, proponemos una enmarañada afectiva, encarnada y creativa con la cual tratar de entender los flujos de energía en las ecologías fluviales de América Latina, en el plan de hacer una exploración de las geohumanidades de la energía. Luego presentamos la metodología de este proyecto de geohumanidades de la energía en nuestros compromisos con el arte de Caycedo, reflexionando sobre nuestra escritura sedimentaria y el proceso de pensamiento promulgado a lo largo del escrito. Centrando este artículo en las energías que conjura y libera el arte en términos afectivos y políticos, exploramos los significados de hacer geohumanidades de la energía en el despliegue de una poética de tensiones encarnadas entre flujo y contención y entre las vistas aéreas e inmersivas que desafían las dicotomías de sujeto/objeto, naturaleza/cultura y geo/humano. Por medio del despliegue de un método de “escritura sedimentaria de blogs” basado en la geo-mimesis, confiamos en conducir la defensa de cómo el entrelazamiento del pensamiento y la escritura proporciona un enfoque novedoso para el examen de múltiples significados de la energía, que trascienden la electricidad en las zonas extractivas de la modernidad.

Key Words:

• energy geohumanities
• geo-mimicry
• river ecologies
• sedimentary writing
• Serpent River Book.

 :

• 能源地理人文学
• 地理模拟
• 河流生态学
• 沉积式写作
• Serpent River

 :

• ecologías de los ríos
• escritura sedimentaria
• geohumanidades de la energía
• geo-mimesis
• Serpent River Book

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our thanks to Carolina Caycedo for permission to use the images and the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback.

Notes

1 The exhibit was held at the Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für Gegenwart from the 16th of November 2018 to the 12th of May 2019 (Jach et al. 2018).

2 From the notion of “biomimickry” used to refer to forms of learning inspired in the forms and processes of nature, we develop the notion of geo-mimicry to refer to fluvial forms of sedimenting material and the geological work they perform.

3 In a world where boundaries are melting, Harriet Hawkins (2021,18) observes the emerging need to combine academic interdisciplinary practice with the lived experiences of academics: “auto-ethnographically on their evolving practices of interdisciplinarity and collaboration, as well as elements such as ethics, participation, and public engagement. This sits alongside a somewhat different vein of work that addresses the lived experiences of academic life, whether in terms of well-being concerns, issues around equality and diversity, or the challenges of doing writing or fieldwork.”

4 Three dossiers published recently in Argentina have focused on rivers considering the politics of waters and hydrosocial geographies in the Latin American context (Galimberti, Astudillo Pizarro, Roldán 2020; Merlinsky, Martin, Tobías 2020; Ríos, Riera, Calvo 2021).

5 I came to know later that whether in workshops, installations, objects or films, the Be Dammed project introduces a perspective from above. Satellite images integrate installations such as Dammed Landscape (2013), Yuma y Yaqui (2014), Yuma (2014), The People River (2016), Serpent River Book, workshops (Expandiendo el río, 2014) and films (Land of Friends, 2014). Carolina Caycedo uses drone photographs and films to visualize geo-choreographies, the outcome of regional workshops that take place in areas threatened by hydraulic infrastructure projects.

6 Recent critical perspectives challenge the neoliberal meanings of energy by engaging with plural energy ontologies from Indigenous thinking (Bene et al. 2019; Chapman 2013), and our research is inspired by those conceptualizations.

7 Recent studies have shown that the toxic concentration of mercury and arsenic in Río Tercero is causing the decimation of local fish species and the contamination of the local human population (Garnero et al. 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Verónica Hollman

VERÓNICA HOLLMAN is researcher of the Argentinean National Council of Research (CONICET) at the Geography Institute of the University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests concern the visual construction of environmental problems in Argentina, the introduction of aerial vision in non-military practices, and visual instruction in Geography.

Azucena Castro

AZUCENA CASTRO is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral fellow at Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Sweden, and a Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University, USA, where she co-coordinates the Focal Group “materia.” E-mail: [email protected]. She was a Postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires, working with the “Nature, Culture, Territory” Study Group. Her research focuses on environmental humanities, cultural studies, and art research in Latin America and the Caribbean.