The Anthropology of Bioenergy

Forests and Communities in The Southeastern United States

Bibliographic Data

ID14835673
AuthorsSarah Hitchner (0000-0003-0407-6232), John Schelhas (0009-0004-0233-3391), J Peter Brosius
Year2023
Volume45
Issue3
Pages4-10
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePracticing Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0888-4552 • E-ISSN: 2994-1628
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.17730/0888-4552.45.3.4
OpenAlexW4384941113
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

Bioenergy companies have proposed and constructed numerous industrial plants for wood-based bioenergy production; while they envision and plan these facilities in distant locales, they build the plants at a commercial scale in specific communities in the southeastern United States. Ethnographic research can improve understanding of how people in these communities, often rural, heavily forested, and economically impoverished Southern towns, view and experience bioenergy initiatives. It can also elucidate various, often competing, worldviews and ways of discussing an interconnected web of social issues related to bioenergy development. Further, ethnography in these local communities sheds light on ways that some actors strategically deploy certain narratives to promote their own objectives. Through multi-sited fieldwork in Georgia and Mississippi and event ethnography at regional conferences and national webinars, we have found that four main issues are intertwined on a local level in communities where bioenergy facilities are located: energy, landscape, climate, and race. These rural, forested communities grappling with deep racial divides, socioeconomic vulnerabilities, and skepticism about climate change will continue to be sought as sites for wood-based bioenergy, making understanding the cultural context a paramount concern

Archaeology · Bioenergy · Context (archaeology · Economics · Environmental resource management · Ethnography · Geography · Logging · Renewable energy · Sociology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Ecology · Forestry

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