The University of Arizona Press
When: Monday, April 17, 2023, 2:00 p.m.
Where: MCB 101, Michelson Hall, University of Southern California, 1002 Childs Way, Los Angeles, CA
Andrew Curley will speak about his new book Carbon Sovereignty as part of a panel discussion of “The Emerging Extracitvist Frontiers of the Green Energy Transition in the Americas,” at the University of Southern California. Other panel members include Javiera Barandiarán, Dustin Mulvaney, Teresa Montoya, and Discussant James Blair. The event is co-sponsored by the USC Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life and the USC Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies. Register for the event here.
Carbon Sovereignty offers a deep dive into the complex inner workings of energy shift in the Navajo Nation. Geographer Andrew Curley, a member of the Navajo Nation, examines the history of coal development within the Navajo Nation, including why some Diné supported coal and the consequences of doing so. He explains the Navajo Nation’s strategic choices to use the coal industry to support its sovereignty as a path forward in the face of ongoing colonialism. Carbon Sovereignty demonstrates the mechanism of capitalism through colonialism and the construction of resource sovereignty, in both the Navajo Nation’s embrace and its rejection of a coal economy.
