Ecologics

"Research included interviews carried out with key representatives of international, national, regional, and local interests, supporting a richly nuanced account of often emotionally charged encounters. Howe balances multiple viewpoints, ranging from those gained though formal appointments and official press conferences in Mexico City to those observed in restaurant meetings and confrontations between protesters and police on the Isthmus. The chapters oscillate between chronological telling of events—from wind power anticipated, to the project interrupted and ultimately suspended—and consideration of three other-than-human forces that played key roles in the unfolding of events: wind, trucks, and species. Recommended. All readers." -- C. Hendrickson * Choice *
"Howe and Boyer look back on the past with fresh eyes. . . . Howe and Boyer’s project has many virtues. For one, it articulates the perils of corporate wind economies. For another, it positions Indigenous communities (like the Zapotec) not as outmoded objects for anthropological inquiry, but (á la Gayatri Spivak) as 'active [producers] of culture.' Most importantly, perhaps, is how Wind and Power in the Anthropocene documents alternatives to corporate wind ventures like Mareña. The book highlights, for example, community-based initiatives that also seek to harness the awesome power of istmeño wind—projects that promote communal welfare and environmental justice." -- Stacey Balkan * Public Books *
"The duograph is an interesting and novel way to approach collaborative writing, which I enjoyed engaging with. . . . Howe discusses, through her vivid writing style, what happens when distinct imaginaries of environmental care and environmental harm come into conflict, examining how wind energy—an antidote to the Anthropocene—became both failure and success." -- Anna G. Sveinsdóttir * Journal of Latin American Geography *

“In Wind and Power in the Anthropocene, a two-volume ‘duograph,’ Cymene Howe, in Ecologics, and Dominic Boyer, in Energopolitics, explore the development of wind parks during the early twenty-first century on the isthmus of Tehuantepec…. One of the most refreshing components of their collaborative and individual writing is the clarity of their position as researchers in this project as they circulated among politicians, indigenous peoples, and corporate officials. It is a necessary exercise, as they argue, for appreciating the entrenchment of the wind in local political and social relations.”

-- Nathan Kapoor * Technology and Culture *
“Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer have crafted two eloquent accounts of the turbulent, aeolian politics that unfolded during their 16-month-long field research in Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec, between 2009 and 2013.... Ecologics...is perhaps the most evocative half of the duograph.” -- Chakad Ojani * Anthropology Book Forum *
“[Ecologics and Energopolitics] make strong arguments on political processes in the field of wind energy in Mexico...[and] are important contributions to an anthropology of energy, a still growing field within the discipline.” -- Oliver D. Liebig * Anthropos *