Energy sustains life. Yet, the hegemonic model for generating, transforming, transporting, and using energy is highly destructive of life. Alternative energy models that break with the capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and anthropocentric dimensions of the hegemonic energy model are therefore much needed. One such Alternative concerns the Energía para yeknemilis (Buen Vivir) en la Sierra Nororiental de Puebla project in Mexico, which was featured in the December 2024 GTA’s Periodical #15. The project has as its main objective “building a different way of managing energy in our territory, in accordance with our cosmovision and ways of life as Indigenous peoples and that contributes to yeknemilis.” ¹⁾ It was implemented by the Union of Cooperatives Tosepan and predominantly funded by the Mexican National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies. In this essay, we reflect upon the role of collaborative research in transitioning to an alternative energy model, basing our reflections on over eight months in participatory research, our experience within the project, and our open access academic article Powering the pluriverse. For Marisol this collaboration was part of her work as a “thinking-feeling” community investigator (investigadores comunitaries sentipensantes) with Tosepan while for Erik it was part of his PhD research in Geography at the University of British Columbia.

The project entails an example of how energy transitions can embody decolonial praxis. It not only develops technological alternatives but also redefines notions of energy and energy justice through Masewal and Totonac worldviews. The initiative highlights six possibilities, including conceiving the transition from below and in struggle, designing it with and for Indigenous and peasant communities, rethinking energy in non-anthropocentric terms, and strengthening territorial autonomy, but also faces six limitations, such as the persistence of colonial knowledge structures, patriarchy, racism and folklorization, as well as financial, organizational, and state-related challenges. Overall, the project illustrates how community life projects can challenge the coloniality of energy regimes and, despite structural tensions, provide concrete pathways for building decolonial energy transitions oriented toward a Masewal and Totonaco vision of Buen Vivir.

The participatory research involved the entire team of “thinking-feeling” community investigators, who played an indispensable role in the project since they were responsible for developing the social energy technologies that enable the alternative energy model. To this end, they conducted technical-scientific tests and community visits to build and pilot these technologies. These technologies include eco-efficient wood-saving stoves, sunlight and hot air-powered drying chambers, and so-called anthropo-machines that use human energy. The “thinking-feeling” community investigators formed a crucial link between the participating communities and the project, often belonging to these same communities to make sure that the research and design occurred in a linguistically and culturally appropriate manner. To ensure that the design process was as reflective of local experiences and knowledge as possible, the community investigators collaborated with over 20 families in the various participating communities. Beyond the families with whom direct collaborations were established, the community investigators created a Center for Learning, Technological Innovation and Local Energy Management where the social energy technologies prototypes were showcased to groups of community members that visited the Center.

In these collaborations, community members were engaged as partners and agents of change, breaking with the condescending research practice that treats inhabitants of communities as objects of research who can furnish data but must simply accept findings, recommendations, solutions, and technologies proposed by researchers. Indeed, the co-design process substantively influenced the iterations of the prototypes and thereby how the social energy technologies would work, look, and feel. Ceramic tiles were added to the stoves to make them easier to clean and nicer to regard while as much locally abundant eco-construction materials were used in the construction of the prototypes to ensure that the technologies would be relatively simple and affordable to maintain and repair (See Picture 1). Within the participating ‘research families,’ women play a decisive role. Not only were they early adopters of the technologies, but they were also often those who were most responsible for the process of piloting and evaluating the technologies and prototypes. However, the forerunner role of women is ambivalent in that it promotes gender but also adds additional responsibilities to the triple role that women usually already play in their daily lives, meaning in social reproduction, productive labor, and community organizing. This underscores the need to carefully consider gender as a dimension of the project and research design and execution.

As preparation for their wide range of tasks, the “thinking-feeling” community investigators received an educational program from Tosepan. Erik was invited to contribute to this program through dialogues and workshops about the role of energy in society, the dilemmas presented by the contradictions of low-carbon energy infrastructure at this moment of overlapping planetary crises as well as with skills development like report writing and oral presenting. In turn, Erik would receive education from the “thinking-feeling” community investigators, including through long semi-structured interviews as well as by participating in the daily activities at the Center and assisting with the construction of prototypes in communities. This shared learning was only made possible by the creation of an environment of trust and openness between the “thinking-feeling” community researchers and Erik. Before any shared learning activities were undertaken, Erik and the team of “thinking-feeling” community researcher held a conversation in the Center for Learning, Technological Innovation and Local Energy Management to ask about each other’s motivations and trajectories of being interested or involved in the program.

In this educational collaboration, we collectively reflected on how the project originated to confront the capitalist, patriarchal, racist, statist, and anthropocentric dimensions of the hegemonic energy model. In part these have expressed themselves in the territory through the colonial imposition of mining, hydropower, and hydrocarbon infrastructures as well as intensifying droughts, forest fires, and hurricanes. Additionally, we discussed how the project represented opportunities to contribute to yeknemilis and self-determination while also considering ways in which this contribution was being limited. Through interviews, multiple discussion sessions, written reflections, and daily confidential “thinking-feeling” logbooks by the “thinking-feeling” community investigators, we identified six opportunities and six limits.

Projects of life: lessons and limitations

We consider the project highly inspirational for illustrating significant possibilities to transform the energy model. We consider it essential that the project was conceived from below and as part of a struggle to protect territories from the large-scale energy infrastructures that the hegemonic energy model requires. Instead, the project shows that energy models can be designed with and for Indigenous and peasant rural communities through a community-centered participatory design process. This exemplifies that low-carbon energy infrastructures can contribute to Indigenous flourishing and autonomy as well as territorial wellbeing. It also enabled the reconceptualization of “energy” and “energy justice” from Indigenous languages, cosmovisions, traditions, and customs. By asking communities why and for whom energy was being harnessed, a shared vision arose that energy ought to be employed to contribute to yeknemilis in Masewaltajtol and xatlaan latamaat in Liikilhtotonaco— the respective terms for “good living” in Masewal and Totonac languages. The centrality of territory, multi-species harmony, and reciprocity with life rooted in this vision of social and ecological wellbeing implies that the project considers all forms of life within the communities and territories as important and that it requires that there is harmony between and within interdependent and interwoven expressions of life. Moreover, the project to construct an alternative energy model is part of a broader Life Plan described in the Códice Masewal ²⁾, which serves as a strategy towards increased Indigenous sovereignty and autonomy. The project thus seeks to diminish the power of state and private capitalist organizations in the territory and assert democratic control over the energy model and energy infrastructures.

In terms of limits, we noted the following. It was challenging to properly balance techno-scientific knowledge creation with Indigenous traditional knowledge while executing techno-scientific methodologies in a “thinking-feeling” manner can also be difficult. Even though promoting gender equality was an important pillar of the project, the entrenchment of patriarchal relations of power and their intersection with other axes of differentiation, such as race, class, and age means that one must be modest about the contributions that were made towards dismantling the patriarchy. Racism is another of these entrenched structures of oppression, with folklorization and romanticization often unintentionally reproducing the aestheticization of indigeneity that relegates Indigenous peoples, traditions, and knowledge to the magical and distant past. Strained internal organizational capacity as well as the relatively short availability of financial resources represent significant risks for sustaining the project beyond the initial allocated funding. Although the funding of the project has come from a governmental source and Tosepan currently enjoys close relationships with the federal government, we caution against predominantly relying on state power to work towards Indigenous autonomy and sovereignty. In the case of energy models, autonomy and sovereignty are difficult to engender since most of the hegemonic energy model is maintained through state power. Even if state actors were to prove amenable to an alternative energy model, it will in practice commonly involve negotiating a relative degree of dependence on the state. Ensuring democratic control over the energy model and its infrastructures outside of the remit of state power seems a more secure way of substantiating sovereignty and autonomy.

To share these collective reflections and to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience between Alternatives as well as to increase the Energía para yeknemilis project’s liberatory potential, we decided to document and further analyze our deliberations in the form of the open access article mentioned up top. The process of co-writing the paper generated many more reflections due to the authors’ different experiences in the project, varying levels of familiarity with academic writing, and the need to translate the contents across linguistic and other divides. Ample time was taken for this iterative process, and a lot of care went into ensure that all participants in the participatory research felt that the text was representative of the collective endeavor. Because of this, the process of co-writing deepened the sense of collaboration.

We considered it useful to place the project within the wider debates around energy transitions and energy models while highlighting the specific social and ecological circumstances within which the project exists. Because it emerged in a unique territory and seeks to sustain a peasant mode of living in predominantly Indigenous communities, our experiences cannot necessarily be replicated or applied in other settings. Different struggles against the hegemonic energy model and propositions for alternative energy models can nevertheless learn from and nourish one another as they articulate a diversity of pathways rooted in their own territories, modes of living, knowledge systems, and cosmologies. We chose to embark upon our collaboration and participatory research journey because we are convinced like the Zapatista that we must walk and ask questions together in the construction of different worlds. The theoretical, analytical, and practical work of constructing alternative energy models is collective labor. In this light, collaborations between critical academic researchers and communities that seek to break with condescending research practices are particularly relevant since “discussions about energy have been confined to the realms of technicians and engineers” for far too long, as argued by the GTA 15th periodical team. Our experience demonstrates how collaborations that break with this mold can facilitate the articulation of alternative pathways.

We emphasize that alternative energy models must be conceived with and for specific communities through a genuinely participatory process. For other alternatives looking to transform their energy models, we stress that “thinking-feeling” community investigators can bolster the participatory nature of the design process of social energy technologies and help ensure that the alternative energy model is as reflective of local experiences and knowledge as possible. Our experiences with the Energía para yeknemilis project convince us that this is not only very much needed, but that it is also very possible.

¹⁾Tosepan. 2022, 21 July. Energía para Yeknemilis (Buen Vivir) en la Sierra Norte de Puebla. Cuetzalan. Available at: https://taewaloni.net/recurso/periodico-energia-para-el-yeknemilis/ (p. 4)

²⁾Tosepan. 2021. Códice Masewal Tikochitah Tisentekitiskeh Ome Powal Xiwit: Tomasewalyot/Tomasewalnemilis (Plan de Vida Soñando los Próximos 40 Años: Nuestro ser Masewual/Nuestra Forma de Vida Masewal). Cuetzalan: Unión de Cooperativas Tosepan Titataniske.

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