13 episodes
Infrastructure (Re)worldings Infrastructure Reworldings
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- Society & Culture
This podcast is about how infrastructures make, unmake and remake worlds. Infrastructures are not just material structures placed into the landscape, but they profoundly alter communities, their social makeup, relations and natural environment.
We will discuss past and ongoing infrastructure projects and their impacts with researchers and people affected by infrastructural interventions around the world. In dialogue, we aim to gain new perspectives on infrastructures themselves and possible alternative, less intrusive structures that allow the sustenance of life.
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Hydroelectric dams, community rupture and resistance
Susanne Hofmann talks to anthropologist and activist Mónica Montalvo from Sandía Digital about the history of hydroelectric projects in Mexico and resistance against them, with examples from Jalisco and Nayarit. They highlight the coloniality of those infrastructure projects that cause displacement and community rupture, but also discuss possible energy solutions that are small-scale, community-managed and sustainable. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Susanne Hofmann -
Climate Crisis, Wind Energy and Community Resistance
Gemaly Padua Uscanga interviews Rosa Marina Flores Cruz, Afro-Zapotec and member of the Assembly of Peoples of the Isthmus in Defence of Land and Territory (APIIDTT), as well as of the Indigenous Futures Network. They talk about the community resistance against the installation of wind parks in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the consequences of the global North’s green energy boom, and about Indigenous alternatives. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Susanne Hofmann -
Extractivism, Megaprojects and Indigenous Peoples in the 21st Century
Rita Valencia talks to Gilberto López y Rivas, research professor at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) Morelos. He is a long-term contributor to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and committed to the struggles of Indigenous peoples and peasants. They talk about the relationship of Indigenous peoples and the state, the chances of legal defence against extractivist megaprojects, and the Government’s security strategy. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Gemaly Padua Uscanga -
Almost Two Decades of Resistance Against the La Parota Hydroelectric Dam
Host Astrid Chavelas interviews José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, coordinator of the Collective Against Torture and Impunity (CCTI) in Guerrero. They talk about the hydroelectric dam La Parota, collective organising against this infrastructure project, and the conflicts and divisions it caused among communities around issues of land ownership and displacement of settlements located at the Papagayo river basin. The La Parota hydroelectric project is one of the largest hydroelectric projects planned in the hemisphere. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Gemaly Padua Uscanga -
Defending the Chimalapas Against Resource Extractivism and Energy Colonialism
Our host Rita Valencia converses with Josefa Contreras, Angpon or Zoque activist and Indigenous thinker from the Chimalapas – a dense forest region in the southwest of the state of Oaxaca in Mexico – whose intellectual inquiries are linked to the organisational processes of territorial defence. They talk about the role of cultural identity, resource extractivism and energy colonialism in the context of climate collapse, and infrastructure that promotes the way of being and inhabiting of the Zoque people. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Gemaly Padua Uscanga -
The Mayan Train: Extractivist Development, Militarisation and Division
Host Gemaly Padua Uscanga interviews Pedro Uc Be, poet, writer, philosopher and member of the Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory Múuch’ Xíinbal. They discuss the Tren Maya infrastructure project – a 1,525-kilometre railway intended to boost Mexico’s tourism industry – and its social and environmental impacts on the lives of the Indigenous peoples residing in the Yucatán Peninsula. This podcast is in Spanish.
Audio production: Gemaly Padua Uscanga