The ontological dimension of energy security in Guatemala: Towards energy systems from below and with the Earth

Abstract

Taking Guatemala as a case study, this case study helps understand energy governance where multiethnicity and pluriculturality should inform decisions on energy systems' design. To do so, drawing on a mixed methodological approach that involves content and narrative analysis, coupled with a proposed theory framework articulated from the constructivist approaches of Foucault, discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, and discursive psychology, this research mainly analyses two documents: the Energy Policy 2019–2050 elaborated by the Mines and Energy Ministry (MEM) of Guatemala and, the Study on the Guatemalan energy model and its socio-environmental repercussions by the Asociación Comisión Paz y Ecología (COPAE). The COPAE document represents the only alternative energy model proposed so far. Such a proposal is based on the perspective of Maya's People Board. This research seeks to answer the following questions: How do energy security discourses produce and reproduce worlds and subjectivities? What are the implications of energy security discourses over the right of existence, decolonial justice, and territorial sovereignty? Are current energy justice frameworks enough to capture what is at stake? Given Guatemala's pluricultural and multiethnic nature and its implications for energy policy and vice versa, this case study can inform energy governance in other contexts, especially where sociocultural conflicts linked to energy transition emerge.

The ontological awareness this research raises unveils that “the world that we design [through energy security discourses], designs us back.”