Shifting Networks of Power in Nicaragua: Relational Materialisms in the Consumption of Privatized Electricity

Abstract

Drawing primarily on actor-network theory, this article explores the aftermath of electricity privatization in Nicaragua. Privatization has not gone well for most low-income consumers in Nicaragua, who have faced rising and unaffordable tariffs and frequent power cuts that have been economically and psychologically devastating. Scholarship on privatization has focused on the social injustices and exclusions that privatization often engenders, but very little attention has been paid to how privatization is enacted materially. To implement privatization successfully across space, privatizers have to delegate some of their action to nonhumans that they anticipate will function as black-boxed intermediaries. In landscapes of economic hardship and popular suspicion, however, these intermediaries sometimes turn into mediators or technologies with political effects. Electricity consumers have resorted to a range of tactics to subvert the strategies of Spanish multinational Unión Fenosa, which took over the distribution of electricity, and these tactics have involved the creative and opportunistic enrollment of nonhumans. By tracing the shifting associations between the heterogeneous actors that make up the electricity (actor-) network, I seek to illuminate the relational materialisms in the consumption of privatized electricity and their potential for political transformation. An actor-network theory approach enables us to observe, amidst the entanglement of neoliberalizing maneuvers and disabling effects, material practices and translations in the network that are not always disempowering for ordinary people. It also reveals the contingency of multinational power and the (un)making of the global political economy in the spaces of everyday life.

Primariamente con base en la teoría del actor-red, este artículo explora lo que ocurre en Nicaragua después de la privatización de la electricidad. La privatización no ha resultado buena para la mayoría de los consumidores de bajos ingresos en ese país, que han tenido que enfrentar tarifas cada vez más caras e impagables, lo mismo que frecuentes cortes de fluido que han sido devastadores económica y psicológicamente. Los estudios sobre la privatización se han concentrado en las injusticias sociales y exclusiones que ésta a menudo conlleva, pero muy poca atención se ha prestado a la manera como la privatización materialmente es puesta en ejecución. Para implementar con éxito la privatización a través del territorio, quienes están a cargo tienen que delegar algunas de sus acciones en instrumentos que con anticipación se sabe harán su trabajo de intermediación como cajas negras. En los paisajes de dificultad económica y desconfianza popular, sin embargo, a veces estos intermediarios se tornan en mediadores o tecnologías de efectos políticos. Los consumidores de electricidad han acudido a una serie de tácticas para subvertir las estrategias de la multinacional española Unión Fenosa, que adquirió la función de distribuidora de la electricidad, y estas tácticas han incluido la creativa y oportunista incorporación de colaboradores no humanos. Siguiéndole la pista a las cambiantes asociaciones entre los agentes heterogéneos (actor-) que constituyen la red de la electricidad, busco iluminar los materialismos relacionales en el consumo de electricidad privatizada y su potencial para la transformación política. Un enfoque de la teoría actor-red nos permite observar, en medio del embrollo de maniobras neoliberalizadoras y efectos incapacitadores, prácticas materiales y traslaciones en la red que no son siempre desempoderadoras para la gente ordinaria. Esto también revela la contingencia del poder multinacional y el desmonte de la economía política global en los espacios de la vida cotidiana.

Key Words:

• actor-network theory
• consumer activism
• electricity
• Nicaragua
• privatization

关键词:

• 演员网络理论
• 消费者的积极性
• 电力
• 尼加拉瓜
• 私有化

Palabras clave:

• teoría de la relación actor-red
• activismo consumista
• electricidad
• Nicaragua
• privatización

Notes

1. Latour (2005) made a conceptual distinction between intermediaries and mediators. Whereas an intermediary “transports meaning or force without transformation,” holding its shape and coherence as it moves through space, mediators “transform, translate, distort and modify the meaning of the elements they are supposed to carry” (39).

2. Although there was some investment during the twentieth century in both hydroelectric and geothermal power generation, the public system remained heavily dependent on imported oil. During the Sandinista Revolution, electricity prices were kept low, but new connections did not keep up with population growth (CEPAL 2003) and blackouts were common. At the time of the Sandinista electoral defeat in 1990, the Nicaraguan electricity system urgently required investment, and only 49 percent of the population had access to electricity.

3. Electricity losses are divided between “technical losses,” energy that is lost from the system during transmission because of infrastructure problems, and energy stolen by either large consumers or shanty town dwellers who establish their own illegal connections.

4. Whereas Costa Rica and Honduras generate 80 percent of their electricity from autochthonous renewable sources, and Guatemala, El Salvador, and Panama manage 50 percent, Nicaragua only reaches 15 percent of electricity generated in this category (CEPAL 2003). This percentage is likely to improve in the future owing to the creation of a wind farm in Rivas and Brazilian investment in hydroelectric power.

5. Although the complexities of the political landscape in Nicaragua are beyond the scope of this article, the current Nicaraguan president and leader of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), Daniel Ortega, was very critical of Union Fenosa as leader of the opposition (AP 2007). The FSLN returned to power in 2007 and has since accommodated and purchased shares in the Spanish multinational. Concerns about the lack of government transparency continue particularly as Venezuelan power plants, oil, and aid, which have helped to alleviate the electricity crisis, are excluded from the national budget. Union Fenosa remains in Nicaragua, but in a new attempt at ordering and gaining legitimacy now operates under a new name (Gas Natural). Although repeated calls to cancel their contract have not succeeded, it is clear from the multiple forms of ongoing contestation that, in the words of de Certeau (1984, 16) “this relationship of forces” has not “become any more acceptable.”

6. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3qzSsHuZgE.