Author: The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

As heatwaves, droughts, floods and other climate change catastrophes pile up, the decarbonization of the global economy has become the century’s signature political issue.

The future of energy independence promised by solar development is complicated by a legacy of political conflict and new relationships of dependence and inequality.

Using the example of the Bodo community in Ogoniland, where local youths operate refineries constructed with local materials and technology, I show that such refineries represent an emergent form of energy capture that transforms the creeks of the Niger Delta into islands of carbon sale and challenges state and corporate power.

This article, based on ethnographic fieldwork in 2016–2019, examines methane extraction operations in Lake Kivu on the Rwanda/DRC border as a lens into understanding how energy futures in Africa are imagined and enacted within national projects of post-war reconstruction.

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: 88-104

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: 71-87

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: 125-145

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: 146-147

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: 105-124

Journal Name: The Cambridge Journal of AnthropologyVolume: 38Issue: 2Pages: v-v

In the quest for alternatives to energy extraversion and carbon-heavy extraction, transformation of waste to energy is growing worldwide. In Ghana’s working-class city of Ashaiman, an international NGO converts faecal waste into electricity through a massive biodigester. Fed by public toilets, the power is sold back to residents.

People in the Singida region of Tanzania have long utilized diverse energy sources for subsistence. How do rural Singidans eke energy from their natural and social environment? How can ideas of the sun and of labour in Nyaturu cosmology inform understandings of energy? And how are new energy technologies reshaping Singida’s social and economic landscape?

Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international efforts to find market-based solutions to the delivery of basic energy services in humanitarian contexts.