Violent environments and the low-carbon energy transition: Cautionary tales from Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Two decades on, we seek to expand Peluso and Watt's seminal 'Violent Environments' (2001) with the advent of decarbonization efforts to transition to a low-carbon future, which can have violent outcomes for residing communities. Our expanded political ecology of violence coalesces the violences of extractivism inherent in the transition, which manifests at varying tempos (slow to fast) and degrees of legibility (invisible to visible). Our research in Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea highlights the violences that progress in new environments shaped by historical processes of colonialism and imperialism, accumulation by dispossession, climate change, and decarbonization efforts, among others. We offer to reorient our theoretical agenda in the era of the 'capitalocene' that critically identifies, scrutinizes, and attends to the myriad forms of violence that are correlated with a low-carbon energy transition. In conclusion, we urge social scientists to invoke a thoughtful engagement with violences, recognizing conflicts embroiled in politicized decarbonization efforts.