Dr Ed Atkins of the School of Geographical Sciences has just published a new book on hydropower in Brazil. Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon is published by Routledge in their Routledge Studies in Sustainability series.
From the Routledge website:
In Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon, Ed Atkins focuses on how local, national, and international civil society groups have resisted the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric projects in Brazil. In doing so, Atkins explores how contemporary opposition to hydropower projects demonstrate a form of ‘contested sustainability’ that highlights the need for sustainable energy transitions to take more into account than merely greenhouse gas emissions.
The assertion that society must look to successfully transition away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy sources often appears assured in contemporary environmental governance. However, what is less certain is who decides which forms of energy are deemed ‘sustainable.’ Contesting Hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon explores one process in which the sustainability of a ‘green’ energy source is contested. It focuses on how civil society actors have both challenged and reconfigured dominant pro-dam assertions that present the hydropower schemes studied as renewable energy projects that contribute to sustainable development agendas. The volume also examines in detail how anti-dam actors act to render visible the political interests behind a project, whilst at the same time linking the resistance movement to wider questions of contemporary environmental politics.
This interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, sustainable energy transitions, environmental justice, environmental governance, and development studies.
Description from Routledge
Ed wrote about the themes of the book in a piece for The Conversation. You can read ‘Belo Monte: there is nothing green or sustainable about these mega-dams’ here.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Redesigning Hydrology
Chapter 3: Damming the Amazon
Chapter 4: ‘By hook or by crook’
Chapter 5: Belo Monstro
Chapter 6: “A country that cannot live with difference”
Chapter 7: Refusing to Celebrate Victory
Chapter 8: Final Remarks
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
Dr Ed Atkins is a Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. You can find his published work here, and follow him on twitter @edatkins_
Header image: International Rivers on Flickr
Centre for Environmental Humanities 