Environmental justice and the expanding geography of wind power conflicts

Wind power is expanding globally. Simultaneously, a growing number of conflicts against large-scale wind farms are emerging in multiple locations around the world. As these processes occur, new questions arise on how electricity from wind is being generated, how such energy is flowing within societies, and how these production-flows are being shaped by specific power structures. The present paper explores the expanding geography of wind energy conflicts by analyzing 20 case studies from across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Based on the Environmental Justice Atlas database, it reflects on how land pressures and patterns of uneven development emerge as two features of the current expansion of wind farms. Following a relational analysis, these patterns are examined to interpret the plural instances of opposition emerging throughout the rural spaces of the world. The article argues that previously unexplored forms of collective action are expanding the scope and content of the “wind energy debate”. In addition to the claims of “landscape” and “wildlife protection” addressed by the existing literature, this study sheds light on the rural/peripheral contexts where opposition emerges through the defense of indigenous territories, local livelihoods and communal development projects. The study contends that these “emerging storylines” embrace an environmental justice perspective when challenging the socially unequal and geographically uneven patterns reproduced by the ecological modernization paradigm. From this lens, cases of local opposition are not interpreted as selfish forces blocking a low-carbon transition, but instead, are understood as political instances that enable a wider discussion about the ways such transition should take place.


Introduction
fixes to solve the climate-energy crisis appear to reinforce (rather than revert) the uneven power relations that characterize current social structures (Swyngedouw 2010;. The analysis of environmental conflicts and claims for justice related to the expansion of renewable energies here raises a new spectrum of questions and paths of inquiry: how this transition is taking place (Dunlap 2017, Del Bene et al. this feature); by whom and for whom (Newell and Mulvaney 2013;Calvert 2016); how these new energy flows are configured by particular economic institutions and power relations (Avila-Calero 2017); and how renewable energies interlink with issues of capital accumulation, spatiality and land grabs (McCarthy 2015;Fairhead 2013;Yenneti et al 2016). The inventory of conflicts analyzed in this article seeks to provide an empirical basis to approach these set of theoretical questions. The following sections expand the wind energy debate by describing how land pressures and patterns of uneven development, derived from the expansion of large-scale wind farms, places issues of space and justice at the center of emerging conflicts.

The inventory of conflicts: methods and conceptual approach
Each case encompassing the inventory of wind energy conflicts was first filed in the Environmental Justice Atlas (Ej-Atlas). The Ej-Atlas acts as a shared platform and database to study and disseminate cases of grassroots activism emerging from the uneven distribution of environmental burdens along the commodity chains (Temper et al 2015). From a conceptual perspective, it works as an empirical tool helping to understand how changes in socio-metabolic configurations redefine the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, The Ej-Atlas database collects qualitative and quantitative data of each conflict including: description of the case, features of the project triggering conflict, perceived and potential impacts, affected population, actors mobilizing, outcomes of the conflict and sources of information. Once a case-study is completed, an internal board revises the content and sources to assure accuracy before its publication. This methodology is applied to each one of the cases and further information can be found both in the introduction of this Special Feature as well as in Temper et al. (2015). For researching the 20 wind power conflicts presented in this paper, two criteria were established in advance. 1) Covering those countries of the "Global South" that are experiencing increasing investment in large-scale wind energy projects 1 . 2) Including some cases in the "Global North" contributing to our understanding of new actors, claims and values in the wind energy debate. The set of 20 cases was also defined by the available information, including activist communications, newspaper articles and official documentation from companies, governments and investors 2 . Sources of information for each case are listed on their respective entry at the Ej-Atlas website, and direct links are provided in Table 1. Figure 1 and Table 1 present the basic information and location of these 20 conflicts. Own elaboration based on www.ejatlas.com Taking the Ej-Atlas methodology as the starting point was crucial to go beyond the isolated case-study approach that still dominates the study of wind power opposition. When following the same analytical categories for each of the 20 cases, a systematic evidence-based inquiry was provided to explore the determinants of wind power expansion as well as the dissent voices emerging at the local scales. The Ej-Atlas also provided a well-defined analytical perspective, helping to explore the relationship between wind energy conflicts and environmental justice narratives. The display of results presented in the following sections will show that beyond the Ej-Atlas database, additional categorization and some further research was needed to answer the specific questions of this article. For example, the first section of results (features of projects) is based on the Ej-Atlas information, but enriched by literature and displayed under specific categories and estimations. The second section (features of conflicts) is also based on the derived the 20 Ej-Atlas entries, but digested and clustered into five different "socio-geographical contexts": indigenous and ethnic territories; community managed reserves; nature conservation areas; rural and peri-urban communities; and affluent suburbs. Finally, the discussion section explores how these elements (features of projects and conflicts) suggest the inclusion of environmental justice narratives in the wind energy debate.

Features of projects: unpacking large-scale wind farms
According to the Global Renewables Status Report (REN21 2016), the current expansion of renewable energies, both in general and for wind power in particular, is mainly owed to the deployment of large generators (megawatt-scale and up), owned by utilities or large investors. The 20 wind power projects analyzed in this inventory fall in this large-scale category. However, additional elements of analysis remain crucial to interrelate the scale of projects with their socio-political implications, and thus shed light on the drivers and nature of conflicts. In the following paragraphs, three additional criteria are included in order to widen our understanding of a large-scale project: 1) the associated land requirements; 2) the type of infrastructures they entail; and 3) the end users of electricity produced. Each of these criteria is conceptually described, including a brief description of such features in the inventory. This extended analysis based on the 20 cases argues how land pressures and patterns of uneven development are derived from the ongoing expansion of large-scale wind farms. Table 2 summarizes this information into a single chart.

Land requirements
Alternative energy sources require vast amounts of space to generate the energy that conventional fossil and nuclear resources can produce in focal points of extraction (Huber 2015). The high-land intensity related with renewables is a consequence of differential power densities, where the quantity of power that can be generated from a certain area depends on the resources available and harvesting technologies (Smil 2008). Power densities (W/m 2 ) of conventional fossil and nuclear energy sources are two to three orders of magnitude greater than those of renewables 3 ; showing that if the level of energy flows is to be maintained or increased under a lowcarbon system, area coverage of alternative energy sources will have to increase in large magnitudes (Scheidel and Sorman 2014 p. 591). 2017k). In such cases, the distributional implications play a very important role in the construction of a challenging movement against wind power production. Table 2 presents this aggregated analysis into a single chart.

Features of conflicts: claims and actors at different contexts
Land pressures and patterns of uneven development are perceived and contested differently, depending on the specific context where wind power projects are deployed, or planned to be installed. In the inventory of conflicts, five socio-geographical contexts have been identified as general categories of analysis (see also Table 2). This section summarizes the most salient patterns in terms of actors, claims and values mobilized towards the wind energy expansion in each one of these contexts:

Indigenous and Ethnic Territories
At least 50% of cases in the inventory unfold in contexts of indigenous and ethnic territories around the world; most of them located in the Global South but not exclusively (see : Ejatlas 2016  Public statements about communities not being against renewable energies but rather the ways in which projects are deployed are also recurrent in these conflicts. In Mexico, for example, a woman indigenous leader insists that Zapotecos and Huaves are not against wind power, but are opposed to land grabbing and its impact on local communities (Chávez 2014). In Brazil, communities state that they are not against wind energy but are against the violation of their territorial, political and environmental rights (Ejatlas 2017c). Sami representatives refer to the project as "the latest chapter in a longstanding struggle between Sámi reindeer herders and industrial interests," and then declare "we're not against wind power, but we are opposed to big wind farms since (…) local Sámi herders will lose about a quarter of their winter grazing land" (Sullivan 2010). The critical views these stances reflect, seem to place industrial wind power as external forces enhancing historical patterns of inequality and injustice.

Community Managed Reserves
Two cases in the inventory illustrate the deployment of large-scale projects inside community-managed reserves. In such instances, land pressures and patterns of uneven development have been manifested in challenges to maintain environmental restoration efforts sustaining local livelihoods. The first case unfolds in the area of the Kalpavalli Community Forest, located in the state of Andra Pradesh, India. Kalpavalli is widely known as a grassroots restoration initiative that transformed a barren territory through forest management, watershed development and the creation of sustainable forest livelihoods. Despite its successful outcomes, the area of Kalpavalli formally remained as "wasteland", allowing a private company to purchase part of its land to develop a project inside the forest. As with many other cases in India, the political construction of the concept of "wasteland" has facilitated land acquisitions that reshape agrarian livelihoods to promote the industrial expansion in the country (see for instance: Baka 2013). Additionally, the expansion of wind energy in India does not follow any environmental norms, and land deforestation required for wind power deployments is somehow tolerated (CSE 2013). The deployment of a project inside the Kalpavalli forest has therefore triggered legal claims against the degradation of productive lands and water sources that previously sustained the local project. Both of these cases illustrate that land purchases or leasing contracts do not necessarily displace local communities, but that changes in the rights to use and manage parts of the territory do affect existing grassroots initiatives. Interestingly, the legal and institutional mechanisms encouraging the development of windfarms inside these community managed reserves, are tightly related with national aims of modern industrialization throughout sustainable development initiatives. Paradoxically, patterns of uneven development are reinforced as such national efforts imply the partial clearance of alternative local models for sustainable management and community reproduction.

Rural and peri-urban communities
Two conflicts in southeastern Europe constitute cases of rural and peri-urban communities mobilizing against the impacts of large-scale wind energy projects. In such cases, impacts at local scales appear to be addressed by are sited (see also : Rignall and Atia 2016). A contextual approach to wind power conflicts then appears as the second part of the analysis, helping to understand how land pressures and patterns of uneven development are expressed and contested in different locations of the world.
The five socio-geographical contexts analyzed in the inventory reflect a wider roadmap of actors, values and political implications of the "wind energy debate" (Ellis et al. 2006;Szarka 2007;Jessup 2010). In this scenario, a spectrum of environmental justice narratives appears as variable forms of collective action on socioenvironmental concerns related with the current wind power expansion (see: Walker 2009). Such narratives appear in dynamic dialogue with the specific power structures and land uses of each context at stake, reflecting how uneven patterns of wind power are contested. As previously observed, conservation narratives are also present in this scenario as forms of "wildlife" and "landscape" protection. This has been particularly clear in contexts where land pressure is perceived as a threat to spatial shelters protecting "nature" from the industrial world. However, an interesting source of "hybrid coalitions" (Jessup 2010) emerges when critical environmental justice perspectives are combined with the "green credentials" of conservation initiatives, contesting the patterns of uneven development derived from the expansion of large-scale wind farms.
In the inventory, the spectrum of environmental justice narratives opens in contexts of indigenous and ethnically discriminated territories. Land pressures are crucial in these cases, as acquisitions for wind power development disproportionally affect populations with less power and fewer formal land rights (McCarthy 2015). Longstanding resistance to protect these territories from state and corporate powers take here a new "environmental dimension" (Robbins 2004); insofar communities experience the expansion of wind energy as forces enhancing historical patterns of injustice. In contrast with the concept of "land" (subjected to fragmentation and commercial exchange), the notion of "territory" appears as the set of complex relationships between the economic, cultural and ecological spheres of placed-based social groups (Sawyer 2004;Rocheleau 2015a,b).
Whereas indigenous and ethnic groups analyzed here openly express that they are not against wind energy per se, they do stand against projects that reorganize local territories in ways that reinforce political, economic and cultural inequalities (see also : Fairhead et al. 2012). Territorial advocacy therefore emerges as a matter of defending the material basis of community existence (Martinez-Alier 2002), but also as a question of holding their political autonomy to reproduce alternative socio-natures (Escobar 2008).
Similar situations unfold within community managed reserves, as environmental justice narratives appear along the challenges to maintain restoration efforts sustaining livelihood security. When national aims to promote low-carbon industrial transitions encounter grassroots initiatives for livelihood sustainability, affected communities openly question the technical standards of appropriation of the territory and its resources (Acselrad 2010: 103). What is at stake, therefore, is the question of who owns the power to impose particular understandings of sustainability and who benefits from it at different geographical scales. Environmental justice narratives also appear in the context of rural and peri-urban communities in the south of Europe, although in differing ways. In contrast with the territorial content of indigenous and ethnic struggles, these instances illustrate a combination of "landscape conservation" narratives and critical perspectives the expansion of industrial wind power. As observed, land pressures are manifested as concerns over natural areas, archeological sites, and aesthetical landscapes; but also as challenges to maintain the common productive and political projects of local communities. In the North Aegean Islands, there is an explicit stand to defend a small-scale sustainable project based on the natural limits of the area, while the Karaburun community defends reforestation initiatives as part of local development plans. When explicitly challenging the uneven patterns of industrial renewable energies, these cases illustrate a clear denunciation against uncontrolled economic growth and the consequent harm of communities' futures. Analogous to what happens with the spatial requirements of large-scale projects, the distributional dimension related with the end uses of electricity appears as a recurrent issue in the analyzed conflicts, both in northern and southern contexts. As such, the inventory suggests that uneven relations in energy matters are not just expressed at a global scale (e.g. Hornborg 2014) but also at lower regional dynamics (e.g. between the urban and the rural, as well as between high and low-income regions).
Some cases of nature conservation areas affected by the expansion of large-scale wind farms also incorporate environmental justice dimensions to their "eco-centric" claims. Whereas the case in Slovenia represents an example of clear "wildlife conservation" narratives; in the case of Albania these concerns are combined with environmental justice perspectives. As previously observed, the Ekolevizja Network is not just concerned with the protection of "the last unspoiled places of the Mediterranean", but also with the distributional implications of a project destined to supply bulk power to its powerful neighbor country. Within this category, examples unfolding in India and Kenya also illustrate that potential alliances between conservation and environmental justice narratives gives further strength to promote changes in the ways under which wind power is being deployed. Whereas conservationist narratives provide the "green credentials" to question the deployment of industrial installations, environmental justice stances mobilized by surrounding communities render the critical stream to challenge the wider social implications of such facilities.
Alliances between different narratives are also present in the context of the coastal area of Massachusetts. Due to the specificities of the context in this case, land pressures and patterns of uneven development to not appear to be clearly addressed by affected populations. However, a "landscape conservation" alliance was made between radically different groups. It is worth noting how this case gained major attention when tribal communities placed their cultural claims over state courts. An interesting "productive outcome" (Merlinski 2005) emerged afterwards, as the explicit alliance between different groups enabled further discussions about the ways under which the low-carbon transition should take place in the region.

Conflicts as sources for alternatives
The perception of what is a successful outcome in wind energy conflicts might be rather different to perceptions in other instances of environmental injustice. Whereas in oil, gas or nuclear energy-related conflicts, the cancellation of projects is normally framed as the expected outcome for attaining environmental justice, what seems to be more relevant in the case of wind energy is the institutional, technological or political alternatives that these conflicts might bring about. From this perspective, cases of local opposition are not interpreted as regressive forces blocking the possibility of an energy transition, but instead are understood as political instances that enable a wider discussion to occur on the ways such transition should take place.
From a broad perspective, the very existence of local mobilizations helps to shed light on the emergent forms of environmental change and injustices that could be prevented. Some other cases also illustrate how local opposition has enabled a progressive institutional reform in the wind power sector, either by promoting the implementation of previous environmental impact assessments (for the case of India see: CSE 2013) or by reclaiming formal consultation processes for indigenous and other discriminated groups (for the case of Colombia see: Rojas 2012). These are examples of conflicts with "productive" outcomes (Merlinsky 2015), as local opposition promotes new public debates on the way institutions should regulate the expansion of wind energy facilities. The spectrum of these narratives covers issues of equity, recognition and participation widely discussed within environmental justice scholarship (Schlosberg 2013).
The spectrum of environmental justice narratives also illustrates the presence of more challenging perspectives, where the technological fixes and its possible negotiated outcomes are seen as insufficient sources to build alternative energy futures. The defense of "energy sovereignty" (Mexico), "territorial autonomy" (Mexico and Western Sahara), "energy decentralization" and "limits to economic growth" (Greece), are strong examples in this regard. Equivalent importance is placed on the local initiatives deriving from such perspectives: the defense of maintaining previous communities' projects as a source of local sustainability, the promotion of wind power cooperatives in Mexico (Ejatlas 2017b), as well as the proposal of deploying medium-scale windfarms for electricity supply in Greece.
In a similar direction, the increasing number of instances where "hybrid coalitions" take place (Jessup 2010), appear as a potential source for re-configuring the wind power expansion. These alliances could be built not just between environmental justice and conservationist narratives (e.g. Foyer and Dumoulin 2015), but also between these movements and emerging paradigms for social transformation (Martínez-Alier 2012; Kothari et al. 2014; Temper et al, this issue). As energy systems need to be taken beyond a matter of technological change or resource switch, the intervention of plural socio-political visions is placed as a crucial element for transformative action. Rather than a technological transition, transformation paradigms appear to shed light on the need to cover the social, cultural and political dynamics of alternative energy futures (Brand, 2016;Gillard et al., 2016;Scoones, 2016). The pathways of conflicts and potential alliances that could be enabled in the following years, will play a crucial role in this changing and rich debate.

Conclusions
Dominant narratives supporting a pure technological fix towards large-scale renewables are increasingly questioned by multiple forms of social dispute and agency. The study of environmental conflicts related with the expansion of wind power appears as an illustrative example of these processes. When approaching the current expansion of wind power from a relational perspective, new insights shed light over the socioenvironmental implications of such deployments at the local scales. As outlined in this article, the configuration large scale wind farms increasingly derive into land pressures and patterns of uneven development throughout the global rural. The growing presence of environmental justice narratives at different contexts of the world, contribute to unveil and contest these inconvenient arrangements in multiple ways.
Rather than framing opposing voices as selfish expressions blocking the cultural change needed to move towards renewables, the political value of these movements resides in their capacity to expand the possibilities of imagining alternative energy futures. Even when modern technologies deliver partial solutions for the climate/energy crisis, social and spatial issues are expected to arise if they are not accompanied by changes to demand, all of which requires economic and social transformations (Fauset 2010;Trainer 2014;Scheidel and Sorman 2012). Plural voices emerging at the local scale bring novel directions for imagining such transformations, including issues of technological ownership and scale, as well as different infrastructures and the final uses of electricity. In this regard, local mobilizations and novel alliances contribute to discuss energy transitions as a societal matter, rather than a technical and managerial issue.