From the Jordan River Basin to the Gulf of Aqaba, the shape of energy production is changing. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic research on Jordan’s energy transition, this article examines the spatial shift in energy production landscapes through the expansion of the global renewable energy investment frontier. Rural renewable energy development and urban deindustrialization shape broader transformations in the spatial reconfiguration of global power production, as conjoined processes of land devaluation and revaluation push the frontier of renewable energy investment deeper into the countrysides and rural ecosystems of the Global South. The case of Jordan’s shifting energy frontier reveals new arteries of contestation, as rural lifeways and livelihoods are devalued to make space for national energy development and decarbonization goals. This transformation of rural deserts into new frontiers of global decarbonization finance shifts the kinds of labor and lifeways that can be sustained, and the kinds of futures that can be envisioned on these lands.
Kintzi, Kendra,
"Desert Power: Wind Farms and the New Frontiers of Renewable Energy Finance in Jordan"
(2023).
Commodity Frontiers.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/ws81-3a59
Commodity Frontiers is the Journal of the Commodity Frontiers Initiative (CFI). Edited by a group of scholars and researchers from various disciplines and organizations in the CFI Network, the Journal explores the history and present of capitalism, contestation, and ecological …