Beyond Gender: The Intersectional Look at Energy Poverty Through the Experiences of Argentina and Mexico

Abstract

This chapter recognizes that gender is intertwined with other regimes of truth in the configuration of subjectivities; that is to say, that in the field of social science research on energy systems, and more precisely in those that address energy poverty, it is necessary to understand race, class and gender (mainly, but not exclusively) as entwined systems of beliefs about identity and inequality and that they reinforce each other in historically situated ways. In this sense, two cases will be analyzed whose records allow us to recognize the complexity of the identities that are addressed in energy programs: the first, with the use of efficient stoves for food production in the Purhepecha plateau of Michoacán, Mexico; and the second on the adoption of heating devices in northwest of Argentine Patagonia. Through the production of ethnographic data collected from diverse records in both fields of study, we contemplate the need to integrate an intersectional gender approach in new and existing energy policies, programs, and interventions in Latin America to address energy poverty, social justice, and just transitions.