Barrio Women and Energopower in Medellín, Colombia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3412976
AutoresJuan Fernando, Velásquez Atehortúa, Juan Velásquez Atehortúa (0000-0001-7775-3009)
Año2017
Volumen49
Número2
Páginas355-382
Fecha de publicación2017-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Latin American Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-216X • E-ISSN: 1469-767X
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022216x16001930
OpenAlexW2560092587
IdiomaES
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas22

This article argues that the prepaid energy system put into operation in Medellín and across Colombia worked as an expression of 'energopower'; that is, energy as a means to govern societies. The article uses press archives and company statements, official statistics and group interviews to show how energopower operates in Medellín along three lines: that Empresas Públicas de Medellín, the city's public utility company, encouraged disconnected and displaced people as new buyers of prepaid energy services instead of citizens entitled to those services; that the implementation of the prepaid energy system coincided with the vertiginous capitalisation that allowed the city to fund its 'Social Urbanism' and EPM to expand operations across Colombia and other countries in Latin America; and, that prepaid electricity as a tool of energopower subjugated displaced and disconnected populations to new forms of affordability that promptedbarriowomen to understand and oppose its disciplining methods of domination

Business · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Electricity · Energy (signal processing) · Geography · Latin Americans · Political science · Sociology · Urbanism · Energy and Environment Impacts · Engineering · Law · Public Administration · Water Governance and Infrastructure