Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Research & Social Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss

Original research article

Destabilization of Energy Regimes and Liminal Transition through T

Collective Action in Chile
Gloria Baigorrotegui B.
Instituto de Estudios Avanzados, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Román Díaz 89, 7500618, Santiago, Chile

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The transition of energy policy towards fairer and more sustainable paths has centered on the dynamics of
Dramaturgical Performative Perspective destabilization processes in energy regimes. Much has been written about the complex nature of transitions in
Liminal Transitions the sector in 30-40 year cycles, but less work has been done on disruptive destabilizations over shorter periods,
Mediatized Politics especially focussing on how they are produced and intensified. Through a qualitative examination of two failed
large electricity projects in Chile, we investigate how collective action can influence the destabilization of an
electricity regime through interaction between the day-to-day dramaturgical actions of the so-called communitas
and media actors. Both projects, a hydro-dam plant and a coal-fired power plant (CFPP), offer unprecedented
examples of how two transnational energy consortium projects were halted, mainly by effective collective ac-
tions that occurred within Chile’s neoliberal landscape to combat these energy initiatives. We propose an in-
terpretation of the dynamics of regime destabilization from a dramaturgical-materialistic perspective that allows
a new conception of how energy transitions occur. Through this perspective, we shed light on new entangle-
ments, actors and new questions that arise regarding how transitions become real. We propose the mechanisms
of i) pressure, ii) obstruction and iii) public overflow to trace the activities that bring a liminal energy transition
into view.

1. Introduction mix [7] that we call Dramaturgical Performative Perspective (DPP)

Chile has neither fossil fuel resources nor significant innovations in
the energy sector. Its electricity generation sector, which was mainly
controlled by three companies until 2014, is highly carbonized and
contributes to significant environmental degradation [1–4]. This un-
desirable scenario is usually attributed to a combination of systemic
factors such as: poorly protected spaces for innovations in renewable
technologies [5], industry monopolies and policies resistant to change,
immature markets for green innovations, social movements incapable
of culturally delegitimizing dirty and/or unfair technologies, among
others [6].
Between August 2010 and March 2014, for the first time in Chile,
citizens were able to paralyze the construction of a coal-fired thermo-
electric power plant and a hydro-electric power plant that had been
approved by the Ministry of the Environment. These events were ac-
companied by a cycle of protests, called the 2011 Citizen Awakening,
which managed to destabilize the energy regime during this period.
This successful mobilization in the Chilean experience could be inter-
preted, in part, as a form of compensation for the historical non-re-
cognition of civil society’s agency in energy public policy. To under-
stand how this happened, we propose a theoretical and methodological
nurtured from STS post-structuralist approaches [8–10], social move-
ments and studies framed in sustainable transitions [11,5,6], media-
tized politics that stem from civil society solidarities [12,13] and the
attraction to the performance of dramas in the public scene [14].
The following questions arise: 1) Can a Dramaturgical Performative
Perspective shed new light on the phenomena of energy destabiliza-
tion? 2) What new entanglements, actors, mechanisms and questions
arise when destabilizations are observed from this Dramaturgical
Performative Perspective? 3) How do energy-regime destabilization
experiences provide a lens to observe energy transitions?
First, we introduce the concept of Dramaturgical Performative
Perspective in a sustainable transition to consider the capability of
outside actors, such as civil society, to act as a constitutive driver rather
than a residual force of regime change. Second, we propose the me-
chanisms of pressure, obstruction, and public overflows to trace the
activities through analysis of two conflicts. Third, we briefly present the
Chilean environment and energy (mainly electricity) regime. Fourth,
we describe the influences of collective action between 2008 and 2014
in the destabilization of the Chilean energy and environmental regimes.
Fifth, we discuss the energy regime transition in Chile in terms of the
DPP and finally, we conclude with a new conception of energy

E-mail address: gloria.baigorrotegui@usach.cl.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.05.018
Received 31 October 2018; Received in revised form 17 May 2019; Accepted 23 May 2019
2214-6296/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Baigorrotegui B.
transitions which can help illuminate other types of transitional pro-
cesses.
2. Dramaturgical Performative Perspective
The Dramaturgical Performative Perspective (DPP) centers on
practices, which are observed as the nexus of human and non-human
entanglements enacted antagonistically. To be performative, practices
must be accessible to observation by tracking their materialities evident
in successive, persistent and indeterminate acts [71]. This approach can
describe unforeseen, contingent and generative phenomena [64]. In
this context, the DPP can highlight the role of new actors, materials and
unintended connections [69] that fall outside the realm of traditional
perspectives.
Socio-technical dramas can be understood as those performances
where communitas, the nexus of entanglements, identities, materialities,
and virtualities, confronts the dominant frameworks (regimes) to sub-
vert and potentially transform them. The dramaturgy of this clash be-
tween communitas and socio-technical regimes can lead to the occur-
rence of liminal transitions, i.e., transitions that cross a threshold.
This notion of socio-technical dramas is further fostered by the
anthropological contributions of Turner, who by investigating the ri-
tuals of passage of tribal communities recognized their ability to bring
the rapid and extraordinary events of social life to those slower,
rhythmic and regular occurrences of everyday life and vice versa. We
will see the contribution of Turner’s concept when applied to the ex-
periences of fractures, repairs, and reintegrations between communitas
and authorities when we look at the specific events that occurred in
Chile.
Turner [15], observing the daily experiences of the Ndembu com-
munities, identified a propensity to conflict. He described these in-
harmonic stages of everyday life as drama and used the same metaphor
functionally extended to Western society to describe social drama,
which he considered different from natural phenomena. Later Pfaffen-
berger [16] criticized certain uses of the cultural category in Turner's
work (1974) but resorted to this metaphor of drama to analyze tech-
nology. Pfaffenberger brought aspects of culture to technology and
postulated that all around us are artifacts that were generated in the
“technological dramas of their time” ([16]: 309). Pfaffenberger ([16]:
38) affirms that dramatization is a discourse of technological state-
ments and counterstatements, and moreover that drama can drop out of
the technology, for example, in the routinization of technology uses
(material) under the idea of progress (culture). This prominence Pfaf-
fenberger gives to technology to de-signify culture is also applied to the
separation between nature/culture.
Rather than designify culture, however, we prefer to identify socio-
technical dramas in those dramas where energy technologies have
meaning and contra-meanings. From a non-dichotomous perspective, if
we do not consider culture as a separate subject, the socio-technical
dramas encompass meanings, beliefs, values, always possible to dra-
matize via antagonisms where the climax brings yet other bodies and
materialities to the front. Again, in the case of power generating plants
vs communitas, reducing this to a dichotomous nature vs. culture clash
peels away layers of meanings that will be lost and layers of interactions
that cannot actually be understood through such a categorization.
Furthermore, we propose to add the notion of “material-performa-
tive turns" from the realm of Science, Technology Studies (STS) [8,9]
and media studies [13,17] with transitions towards sustainability un-
derstood as a relational and emerging process [18].
2.1. Liminal transition
The liminal space is the position of crossing over. It is the transition
that is the threshold when moving from stability towards another,
different state. The liminal is situated outside the dynamics of order; it
originates in the crisis between more and less hegemonic entanglements
199
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
and conflicts between groups and previously held beliefs. These occur
where there are breaks in regular relationships, and where a public
fracture is obvious. The liminal transition is the uncertainty between
the knowledge of what is and the unknown of what will be.
Using DPP, we can see how socio-technical dramas lead to liminal
transitions. A socio-technical change in liminal terms cannot be reduced
to the relation of technical innovations and symbolic meanings as if
both were separated in advance, but as techno-symbolic forms of re-
pairing and reintegrating crises (dramas) in regimes generated by
communitas in socio-material terms.
Adapting Turner’s works on social drama, the very episodes which
shape the dynamics of dramaturgical destabilizations can be seen as
actively produced during three socio-technical episodes in liminal
transitions: i) crisis in dominant regimes; ii) reparative actions and iii) the
reintegration phase of the subversive networks. The crisis in dominant re-
gimes can result from a set of polemical interactions mobilized by
communitas through the juxtaposition of surprises and practices of sta-
ging knowledge, technologies, characters, and frames in the public
arena. Here the inclusion of media actors is important. According to
Cottle [13] mediatized rituals contribute to the formation of plural
solidarities or a public who sustain a subjunctive orientation. For Hajer
([12]: 4) the media change the conditions in which politics occur and
affect how politics is conducted. In this sense, Hajer identified how
mediatized politics involves moments of dramatization, which stir up
‘dislocating moments’ altering authoritative orders.
Challenged authorities generate the second process, reparative ac-
tions, that include personal admonitions, informal mediation, arbitra-
tion, legal mechanisms, even the resolution of symbolic-public rituals.
An epilogue of this dynamic is the third process, the reintegration phase
of the subversive networks, originating from the recognition of the le-
gitimacy of an irreparable split between the conflicting parties. If those
‘at the top’ experienced what it is to be ‘at the bottom’, then certain
reparatory actions may or will occur. With this, a new staging will be
reconfigured thanks to new and existing symbols [12]. Additionally,
this reintegration manifests opponents that become allies, asymmetries
that become egalitarianism, distances converted into proximities, and
the other way around. Neither will status relationships nor continued
changes in authority as a result of these destabilizations be liberated
from these disturbances.
Here we propose to focus on the liminal fluidity within which col-
lective actions of civil society through mediatized modes of commu-
nication can erupt abruptly in predominant socio-technical regimes,
especially in response to the technocrats and neoliberals predominant
in our part of the global south. Dramas that play out in this liminal way
are particularly interesting when the behaviour of the public is not what
is expected.
In other words, to reflect on liminal transitions is to remain open to
uncertain outcomes when tracking thresholds through DPP. This per-
spective helps to interpret extraordinary events that occur in everyday
life. Those surprises are key to impelling actions that may lead to an
intensification of politics.
3. Collective Action and Regime Destabilization
Collective action is capable of an array of possible destabilizations
[74], where subjects and artefacts are intertwined and mutually pro-
voking [19]. Under a dramaturgical perspective we conceive commu-
nitas not as a fixed entity but as productive collectives that can share
rites with a level of humility, camaraderie, and recognition - though
fleeting - among participants [15]. Communitas acting as a driver in
collective actions aligns framing processes [20,5,6,21] and extends
protest repertoires [13,17]. At the same time, communitas takes part in
the collective of participation “in the making” that produces a resistant
public through participation devices orchestrated by regimes [18,22].
Here we are interested in tracking the destabilizations of communitas
in the adaptive regime of Ureta [10] inspired by the performance
G. Baigorrotegui B.
overflowings of Callon to highlight that "…multiple entities are unable
and/or unwilling to behave in the expected ways" ([10]: 127). We
conceive of the overflowings of communitas against the regime as acti-
vated by the construction of counter-framings, where citizens are re-
luctant to behave like the programmed public, leaving all their previous
experiences in parentheses. To this, we can add an intermediate step
called obstructions in which the communitas performance not only in-
cludes media, legal, and technoscientific actions, but also actions of the
members of the regime itself.
In a previous study, we showed how the hostile intensities of the
contentious local actions were articulated with great attention to public
participation in the EIA processes [23,60]. Here we propose that the
EIAs can be seen as a scenario privileged to track the socio-technical
dramatizations of the communitas subverting their pre-established role
as the public. As demonstrated in other participatory mechanisms [10]
as in EIAs, they turn out to be - contrary to their objectives - sources of
exclusion and citizen distrust in the authorities [24].
Snow et al. [25] presented collective action as generating one of
four core frame tasks of social movements: frame bridging, frame am-
plification, frame extension, and frame transformation. Frame bridging
structurally connects individuals who share feelings - grievances and
attribution orientations - but who have not been mobilized, or had an
organizational base to act upon their interests. Frames amplification
reiterates while clarifying interpretation by means of value assignment.
This means identifying, idealizing or exalting one or more values meant
to be fundamental for potential militants. Frames extension expands
interpretation boundaries so that potential sympathizers can be reached
when a community based on values, feelings, and beliefs of a similar
nature has not yet taken shape. At this point, designing targets and
activities that can be shared by a larger number of people becomes
essential. Finally, frames transformation is required when targets, ac-
tivities and ideology related to the movement become distant from
people, which in turn implies creating new values, interests and beliefs
for members who may then reinterpret a perpetuated state of reality. In
these moments, collective actions bring to the front other places and
alternatives to unwanted energy projects.
We argue that the order of magnitude of events is fuelled by sur-
prises and dramaturgy, which calls for expanding Snow et al.’s con-
ventional framing to view the events of energy destabilization in Chile.
Here we will consider the following activities as a script for perfor-
mative dramas: pressure mechanisms, obstruction mechanisms and
overflow mechanisms. These dramas are not fixed or bounded but have
a sequential dynamic that maintain (offline and online) communication
with authorities.
3.1. Pressure mechanisms
These are activated when collective action succeeds in modifying
the course of normed processes for energy-project EIAs through de-
laying regulatory processes.
3.2. Obstruction mechanisms
Drawing support from institutional members when attempting to
paralyze a project is important. For example, any delay in issuing en-
vironmental permissions for a project is useful. The lobbying and va-
lidation of collective action by factions within an authority favours
obstruction. Expert certification is also important in destabilizing the
regime and expanding mobilizations, as highlighted by Schaffer [26] in
the case of anti-LNG in the USA.
3.3. Overflow mechanisms
These overflows are created thanks to the occurrence of dislocation
moments [12] between collective action and some regime or multi-re-
gime members [27]. These moments emerge during efforts to maintain
200
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
authority when institutions are confronted with new audiences, i.e. not
only do they undermine the confidence and moral credibility of in-
stitutions, but they do so consensually and in a highly emotional way,
where right and wrong are seen clearly; however, the act of settling
discord becomes a difficult task. The overflows, given their co-occur-
rence with dislocation moments, occur when the public persist in be-
having differently from what is programmed. With these surprises, the
authorities are presented as incoherent in the face of public opinion,
provoking an intense reaction of images and visions and can bring other
protagonists to the public mediatized spaces.
Through these overflows, the influence produced by the mediatic
rituals during these public destabilizations must be considered. These
exceptional and performative media phenomena serve to sustain and/
or mobilize collective sentiments and solidarities on the basis of ma-
terialization, symbolization and a subjunctive orientation to what
should or ought to be [13]. These rituals are institutionalized in cere-
monies or stagings linked to authorities and can be of different types
including: moral panics, media events, media disasters, media scandals,
mediatized public crises [13].
In summary, we propose a synthesis, following Callon [9] Chilvers
and Longhurst [18] and Ureta [10], to obtain a framework to track the
collective action of a dramaturgical communitas focused on destabi-
lizing pre-established timeframes in EIAs in the mechanisms of pres-
sure, obstruction and overflow, all of which are strengthened with the
performance of rituals mediated in the public scene. The mediatic ri-
tuals [13] will also figure importantly within each of these mechanisms.
We will look at the events of regime destabilization through the Dra-
maturgical Performative Perspective paying particular attention to the
activities in the liminal space as these dramas were playing out.
4. Energy and Environmental Chilean Regimes
The Chilean state began its national electrification plan [28] in 1939
and in 1944, the National Electric Company, (ENDESA), was estab-
lished [70]. Seven years later, interconnecting five hydro-electric
plants, the Central Interconnected System was implemented ([29], p.9).
During the 1970s, two thermo-electric plants were built during a time
of severe drought, which was considered a "force majeure” given the
exclusive dependence on hydropower ([30]: 178) [61].
Mining is the most important industry in Chile and private in-
dustries, tuned to the mining sector, more or less coordinated with the
political and regulatory authorities to conform the Chilean energy
sector [67,68]. In 1971 the Socialist government of Salvador Allende
nationalized the mining industry and the company CODELCO, one of
the largest exporters of copper in the world, has since then been a State-
run company. The military coup in 1973, which ended the Socialist
government of Allende, abruptly installed free market principles
([31]:14) and the Mining Ministry came to regulate the energy sector
(Decree-Law No. 1 of 1982). The so called “good way of operating" the
energy regime in the neoliberal system placed the State in a subsidiary
role to the rules of the free market and took a conservative perspective
at the moment of promoting changes in laws or regulations [32,72].
The energy sector then became transnational in 1985 and grew rapidly
between 1987 and 1997 ([33]: 83) under the assumption that elec-
tricity generators should adapt to demand, supplying energy at the
lowest cost1 ([34]: 6–7).
It was not until 1990, a decade after the accusations of dumping that
was closely tied to the copper mining industry's lack of environmental
standards, that Chile obtained its first environmental protection law
(Decree-Law 19,300 of 1990) [35]. In 1994 a version of the Environ-
mental Impact Assessments (EIA) of the US National Environmental
1
The system is structured such that energy-generating companies that deliver
their energy first during peak hours provide cheaper energy and the ones that
deliver last provide more expensive energy, per their variable production costs.
G. Baigorrotegui B.
Policy Act (NEPA) was presented, which is careful not to harm free
market principles. All this under the first post-dictatorship government
of Patricio Aylwin who governed "as much as it was possible" i.e.,
without generating drastic changes for the elites [36].
At the end of the 90 s, criticisms about the quality of the EIAs pre-
sented by energy companies showed the government lacked public
environmental know-how to defend the interests and demands of af-
fected communities [36]. Tironi and Barandiarán [32] claimed a neo-
liberal technology was at work through EIAs in Chile. The assessment
system was capable of both maintaining practices that excluded local
knowledge from technical-economic valuation systems and displacing
other areas of environmental and ecological knowledge. The neoliberal
EIAs maintained the predominance of fossil-fuel thermoelectricity in
the desert in the north and of hydropower from dams in the central and
southern regions ([1,31]: 58).
It was not until 2010 that Sebastián Piñera's first post-dictatorship
right-wing government responded to international suggestions [31] and
elevated the areas of energy and the environment to the category of
ministries. However, this form of governing with a predominant re-
liance on neoliberal principles and techno-economic arguments in
mining, energy, and the environment was finally met with a citizen
movement, known as the Citizen Awakening of 2011[37,38]. This
awakening was especially critical and active in transforming to its ad-
vantage its place in the public participation procedures registered for
citizens in the EIAs. This social upheaval was nourished by historical
socio-environmental conflicts, performed by collective action drama-
tizing new repertoires of protests in a mediatized politization [39,40].
It is the birth and growth of communitas in this upheaval, which is
the subject of this study. Through the Dramaturgical Performative
Perspective we will see how energy destabilization occurred and what
new entanglements, actors, mechanisms and questions arise through
the lens of this perspective.
5. The Environmental Defence Movement (MODEMA) and the
Patagonia Defence Council (CDP)
We tracked the conflict over a coal-fired power plant (CFPP) project,
Barrancones, from 2010 to 2013. The data we analysed include 20
semi-structured interviews administered with activists, local political
representatives, administration technicians and local scientists. No re-
presentative of a company responded to the invitation to participate.
Interviews were conducted with interviewees’ prior consent during the
months of April 2010, April 2013, and June 2013 in the region of
Coquimbo, northern Chile.
From 2010 to 2014, we also tracked a second conflict traveling in
the summer over 560 km by car and in winter by bus through river
communities and the capital Coyhaique. This was the area to be af-
fected by a planned large hydro-electric power plant project,
Hidroaysén. We analysed data from 21 interviews done in June 2010,
February 2011, February 2012, and March 2013 with activists, local
political representatives, administration technicians, local scientists and
technicians and one company representative of community relations
who accepted to participate twice. The fieldwork expeditions centered
on the districts that were directly affected by the proposed large energy
projects. The interviews were transcribed and codified based on
grounded theory and analysed using Nvivo pro 11®. Social movement
framing analysis was also codified, and both codifications served as the
basis for the analysis categories of our DPP framework. We also drew on
secondary resources such as scientific reports, environmental impact
assessments, meeting minutes, websites, press releases, international,
national and regional online newspapers, mailing lists. We closely
monitored the social networks of linked organizations as well.
Separated by about 3,000 km, the citizen platforms of the
Environmental Defence Movement (in Spanish MODEMA, or the
Movimiento de Defensa del Medio Ambiente) and the Patagonia Defence
201
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
Council (CDP, or the Consejo de Defensa de la Patagonia in Spanish) are
not exactly alike but share substantial achievements. MODEMA had 130
members to defend the coastline of the Coquimbo region (ca. 400 km).
This mobilization escalated from local to international groups. Many
members made their conversion to activism facing the Barrancones
project [41].
In contrast, the CDP is a conglomeration of at least 45 hetero-
geneous organizations with an interest in protecting 15,645 hectares of
land, and its mobilizations have a longer trajectory in environmental
and conservationist advocacy with local and international groups [42].
MODEMA paralyzed the Barrancones CFPP Project in the North of
Chile, while the CDP was formed to fight Hidroaysén, the dam project
in the South. Both groups were active between 2005 and 2014.
Although MODEMA in the North acted in a more limited time range,
but no less intensely, it is also responsible for energizing and adding
pressure to some CDP actions in the South. These two energy projects
were of 540 MW and 2,750 MW of installed capacity, respectively.
Interestingly, the citizen platforms mediatized their crises differently.
In the South, during April 2005 activists in Patagonia decided to
educate and inform citizens through workshops entitled “For Chile and
Aysén…Let’s learn about energy". From these, the Citizen Coalition for
Aysén Life Reserve (subsequently a member of the CDP) was formed in
2006. This group was active until 2014 [43].
Meanwhile, in the North in November 2008, there were energy
plans to construct new generation capacity and provide energy security
under pressure of a growing energy market. Artisan fishing families in
Caleta Hornos participated in demonstrations and blocked a major
highway in opposition to a planned CFPP located in their areas of
protected fishing. Police forces equipped with tear gas anticipated a
sustained fight by fishermen and their families.
MODEMA´s success was considered the beginning of environmental
ciberactivism in Chile [40], and sparked a traditional communication
media response for urgent approval of the Hidroaysén project. The
company´s media campaign was colossal, warning that the country
would be plunged into darkness without it.
5.1. MODEMA and the Barrancones CFPP
Originally, three energy companies planned to build three CFPPs,
and for this the law required companies to present an environmental
impact study of the area of influence. Would it be possible to suffi-
ciently compensate for the environmental impact of these CFPPs with
an installed capacity of 1800 MW adjacent to a protected biodiversity
hot spot? At the beginning of 2010, this question was asked of localities
neighbouring Barrancones adjacent to a 21 km stretch where 80% of
the Humboldt Penguin colony distributed between Chile and Peru nests
[44] and where one of the planned projects was intended.
Pressure mechanisms from MODEMA included street demonstra-
tions (2007–2008) and surprising media appearances of fishermen’s
leaders during official visits of the Energy Minister to the region in
2008, demanding that the projects stop. Local groups made bridges
between local and national frames with live media events that forced
the Energy Minister to recognize the need to evaluate the potential
environmental impact of the CFPPs on Humboldt Penguin National
Park. The energy authority called for a scientific report to assess the
impact outside the EIA of each project. This scientific report was
awarded to the Marine Biology Department of the Catholic University
of the North (the UCN), located in the same administrative region as the
marine reserve [44].
As time went on, the matter became more controversial. The public
meeting, where the results of this report were presented in the seat of
the Regional Government on January 26, 2009, was filled with high
expectations. This was to be a defining meeting – to reject or continue
with plans for construction.
The UCN’s project director, Dr. Vásquez, with a precautionary
G. Baigorrotegui B. Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207

approach, suggested “(a) adjustments in the project’s engineering, and I will be very strict, very demanding with polluting thermoelectric
(b) monitoring and surveillance programs” ([44]: 323). projects, as there have been more than enough in our country.5
The scientific-public controversy began when some scientists par-
One of the activists remembers this political incident as transfor-
ticipating in the report distanced themselves from conclusions con-
mative:
tained in the report. Later, under pressure from public officials and
activists, Dr. Vásquez was forced to recognize the inappropriateness of …we designed the strategy to highlight this promise, and we went to
some elements of the report. La Moneda [the seat of the national government], delivered a letter
The regional official of the National Commission and Forest Area to Piñera and held a press point in the square behind La Moneda
(CONAF), proposed the question “Where wouldn't you install the with a sign saying: "Piñera, keep your word" (researcher-activist
thermoelectric plant in the region?" To this, Dr. Vásquez responded that interview).
"plants should not be installed in places committed to conservation, and
This demonstration was added to the repetition of the president's
today, managed areas are a conservation tool." To this, CONAF’s official
words on many social networks, forming a media event.
answered: "There are no compensatory measures in sight, to address the
An overflow, which came as a surprise even for the Save Punta
possible impact of the thermoelectric projects on the Humboldt Penguin
Choros Campaign (SPC), was triggered by a careless action on the part
National Reserve" (Minutes Session Nº 3 held in 2009).
of a public official. At an Environmental Regional Commission meeting,
Despite these statements, one of three CFPP projects continued:
an activist and his camera were able to catch an image of a text message
Barrancones of GDF Suez Energy2 though the company recognized that
sent by the official, which said: “…they put together 27,000 signatures
the controversial report filed by the marine biologists of UCN was
worldwide. I'm so sick and tired of these shitty hippies" [47]. This
against the project.
personal message sent from the official’s phone went viral on social
Adding to the criticisms of scientists who participated in the report,
media and caused a chain reaction in favour of the SPC. In sum, a
the activists showed a conflict of interest between a maritime public
dislocation event was performed. Many SPC adherents used the motto
representative and her husband, who worked as a consultant of the
“I’m a shitty hippie”. For a time, about three thousand visits per minute
company. This brought about the rejection of the maritime license for
to the campaign’s blog were registered6 .
port construction [45] and amplified frames in terms of probity and
Despite the events, regional authorities approved the Environmental
public values through media. However, this obstruction did not stop the
Qualification Resolution (the RCA for its Spanish acronym) of the
company’s pursuit of environmental authorization.
Barrancones Project on August 26, 2010. On the same day, the SPC
Meanwhile, five activists reported in the newspaper that they had
desperately tweeted a call for people to take to the streets anywhere
received anonymous text messages with death threats from unknown
they found themselves. An activist recalled that while they marched,
mobile phones numbers [46]. Activists then applied further pressure by
their cell phones were bombarded with messages regarding simulta-
launching the Save Punta de Choros Campaign (SPC), which not only
neous civil action in cities throughout the country. Society in full re-
generated extension frames highlighting injustice and potentially nega-
action to the fears and anxieties generated by the proposals, responded
tive environmental consequences but also focused the campaign on
to the media scandal7 followed up with further disclosures and/or
transformation frames of “positive” energy, based on green and renew-
counter-claims until a climax.
able technologies.
President Piñera telephoned the managers of GDF Suez Energy to
During the spring of 2009, taking advantage of the presidential
suggest a change in the project’s location, despite it having received
election campaign, activists decorated Las Salinas beach with paper
favourable environmental reports ([45]: 57-58), such a reparatory action
windmills and installed dynamos activated by bicycles that were used
occurred in an informal mediation. Two days later, Piñera tweeted “we
to project the documentary "Chao Pescao”3 which showed the negative
have reached a great solution to protect the nature sanctuaries at Punta
effects the project would have on the community. The screening shaped
Choros, Isla Damas and Isla Gaviota, for our future generations”8 . The
a media event, which changed the tone of the discourse from conflictive
Barrancones project was paralyzed, and with it, the wealth and fragility
to celebratory. This event resituated the resistance in a scenario of
of the region, as well as the ignorance regarding its ecological biodi-
parties, concerts, creative activities, and commentaries by television
versity, were shown [44,48].
personalities in several cities.
In early 2010, the SPC placed stories on national television about
the disaster the CFPPs would cause the artisan fishermen’s way of life.
5.2. The Patagonia Defence Council (CDP) and Hidroaysén
Celebrities voiced their allegiance to the campaign4 . Interviews with
scientists and accompanying images broadcasted made the headlines as
During 2005, the intention to build a new hydro-electric dam,
they announced a possible disaster. The use of the Vimeo platform fa-
Hidroaysén, was announced. This would generate close to 71.8% of the
cilitated transmission of short videos with personal computers and palm
total power capacity (2,750 MW), with the construction of two dams in
devices.
the Baker River and three in the Pascua River. Electricity would then be
Before the environmental ruling was released, the presidential
transported 2,300 km via an unspecified route to the Central
candidate, Sebastián Piñera (who later went on to win the campaign),
Interconnected System.
showed radical opposition to this type of energy project.
Interviewer: Do you oppose? 5
Case study Chao Pescao/Save Punta de Choros. Ladislao Palma. Available
Piñera: Yes. What we are doing is insane. I will promote clean and
here: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6bz5Q5blnA > (19/10/2018).
renewable energy because the future of energy in Chile is there. And 6
In April, 2010, the number of visitors to the SPC site accumulated 140,000
visit in a few days. Barrancones was one of the ten most tweeted terms
Worldwide ([75]: 30-1).
2 7
With an investment of 1.1 billion USD, it would employ 1,600 people, 96% According to Cottle [13], media scandals imply a more dynamic role of the
in the construction phase and another 70 people during operation, which, in the media over time. In media scandals, revelations or claims are often followed by
study, was presented as having an indefinite useful life (e-seia. Environmental additional claims and revelations and often escalate to a point where morally
Qualification Resolution RCA Central Térmica Barrancones Project. Resolution approved sanctions appear. The discussions in the media were much more
98. Available at e-seia). massive than the surprise demonstrations (two thousands in Santiago and
3
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww-QhlcVeYk > (19/10/2018). Valparaíso and hundreds of people in five other cities in the country).
4 8
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2VoIuCJvgI&feature=related > Official twitter account of Sebastián Piñera. < https://twitter.com/sebas-
(19/10/2018). tianpinera/status/22189173783 > (19/10/18).

202
G. Baigorrotegui B.
The inhabitants of Chilean-Argentine Patagonia9 are accustomed to
isolation, a challenging climate, and a lack of connectivity; they are
proud of their customs, pristine landscapes, and huge reserves of fresh
water. There is a powerful sense of Patagonian identity. The Hidroaysén
project alarmed a section of the population and activated their re-
sistance and territorial defense networks.
Resistant network pressure began with the creation of national10
and international environmental networks. Mobilizing frameworks
varied over these years; however, from the beginning, Patagonian
nature was acknowledged worldwide as unique and beautiful, with
exceptional natural and cultural resources worth preserving.
The early involvement of business people in the zone, who under
the precepts of deep ecology, supported the Patagonia Without Dams
Campaign (PSR for its Spanish acronym), was both controversial and
meaningful [66]. In 2006, Douglas Tompkins, one of the most well-
known US multi-millionaire conservationists, fought against the pro-
ject. The project would affect his own land as well as land he would
bequeath to the State of Chile as a Sanctuary of Nature [49].11
In parallel, environmental organizations mobilized local citizens in
one of the least densely populated (10 km2per inhabitant) areas and the
most remote in the country. In this inhospitable landscape, people
travel great distances on horseback to herd their animals. In fact, in
November 2007 more than 100 horseback riders entered the capital city
to join in a protest after travelling 330 km [50,51,52]. In 2008 in an-
other affected district, Caleta Tortel, a municipal citizen consultation
was organized with the participation of 23% of the population and 78%
rejected the construction of Hidroaysén, but without immediate con-
sequences for its environmental processing [53].
During the 2009 ENEL annual meeting hosted by ENDESA12, Luis
Infanti, the Bishop of Aysén, called on those assembled to address the
spiritual and ethical values of water in the energy business, continued
amplifying frames to transnational advocacy networks13 . A year later, in
alliance with the Campagna Per la Riforma Della Banca Mondiale, an
NGO, the campaign Campagna Patagonia Senza Dighe was launched in
Rome, and two years later, Stop ENEL was initiated [50,54].
Towards the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, the global
struggle was framed more decisively and extended to public values at a
national level against the state. The environmental context was revised
and subsequently categorized as poorly evaluated and technically fra-
gile due to its centralism, inherent unfairness and risky nature.
Thousands of comments from individuals, public organizations, and
citizen science initiatives mentioned the scientific ignorance sur-
rounding the potential impact of the project on native species and the
erroneous compensatory environmental measures presented by the
company [54–56].
In April 2011, after receiving a positive Environmental Qualification
Resolution for building dams, environmental institutionalism was again
discredited, and the national energy production was a hot topic for
9
Patagonia covers an area of approximately 1,000,000 km2 in the southern
regions of Chile and Argentina. Three-quarters belong to Argentina and one-
quarter to Chile (205,456 inhabitants).
10
In the Chilean capital, Santiago, Juan Pablo Orrego and his NGO
Ecosistemas emerged as a natural ally. The platform Jóvenes Tehuelches (Young
Tehuelches, an indigenous grouping) also emerged unexpectedly. Patagonian
students, who had emigrated from the region and broadened their networks, re-
signified their culture and led numerous marches ([43]).
11
Tompkins, a deep ecologist, bought large extensions of land from private
landowners in Chile and Argentina with the commitment to give these to the
State for conservation as protected park lands. He died in Aysén in 2015.
12
In 2009 the transnational Italian electricity company ENEL became the
owner of the Spanish multinational company ENDESA. In 2017 ENEL had
profits of 74.6 Million Euros. It is one of the Italian companies with the most
shareholders.
13
In his pastoral letter, Infanti claims public, environmental and spiritual
values in energy policy for Chile ([76]).
203
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
discussion. The politicization of energy in Chile brought new audiences
and interested parties into the energy market arena: new groups were
formed, and congresses, seminars, university symposia related to en-
ergy, justice and human rights were held, enriched by further conflicted
media events on public regulation.
Although the Directorate General of Water (DGA for its Spanish
acronym) in 2010 allowed Hidroaysén to purchase further water rights,
this was obstructed in a subsequent trial due to the unfair advantage of
the dominant player.
Between 2010 and 2011, the National Commission of Forest Areas
and other professionals complained their technical reports had been
adulterated; much of the information they provided was not included in
the EIA. The line between technical and political issues (baseline and
impact environment assessment) was blurred by noting unregistered
species, unassessed risks, illegal flooding and the possibility of com-
puter failure, the absence of which had perhaps prevented the evalua-
tors from ruling against the project [52]. The alleged pressure applied
by state ministers on public officials prompted the Commission of
Human Rights, Nationality and Citizenship to investigate irregularities
in the Chamber of Deputies [52].
While Hidroaysén in 2012 and 2013 presented its dams as being
highly efficient, the 2,300 km transmission line necessary to move the
energy, with 6000 60-70 m high towers, made further territorial con-
flicts probable [65].
The Investigating Committee put together five volumes pertaining
to irregularities in the EIA 2008-2011, while the company proclaimed
the project would not proceed until the transmission line was en-
vironmentally approved.
The overflow mechanism was triggered by massive and intense
protests. Before the environmental judgments, the Regional Director of
the Environmental Assessment Service resigned, and four re-
presentatives recused themselves due to a conflict of interest con-
cerning the project.
On May 6th, 2011, police and media congregated at the regional
administration to wait for a ruling on environmental approval.
Hidroaysén received approval, while the people shouted out:
“Patagonia without Dams”. On May 20, 2011, one of the most massive
environmental protests in Chile occurred, with about 40,000 people in
the capital and thousands in other regions. Subsequent protests and
media events occurred on an almost daily basis [54].
Another key overflow commenced in February 2012. For a month
and a half, Aysén was a national priority. Artisan fishermen, protesting
under the motto “Aysén, your problem is my problem”, suffered severe
repression by the police. The protest combined issues regarding energy,
poverty and justice for this remote region, and a new wave of protests
arose in the rest of the country, making it a media disaster. Images went
viral on social media, with celebrities urging the government to cease
repression in the region. A negative evaluation of how the conflict had
been managed resulted in the fourth Minister of Energy being replaced,
opening the door to a mediatized public crisis.
The electricity sector was immobilized while awaiting the new au-
thorities. Negative consequences for the project were forecast if the
presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet were to win the upcoming
election. The commencement of the EIA regarding the transmission line
was suspended indefinitely, and losses of USD 256,000,000 were pro-
jected14 . In a press conference in March 2014, the new Ministers of
Energy and the Environment explained why Hidroaysén was rejected,
arguing there were severe deficiencies. This was a reparative action on
screen in prime time.
The transnational modus operandi for building hydro-electric dams
14
This figure is mainly composed of the costs of ownership and a lease to
dispose of the usufruct of the water rights necessary for the operation of the
plants, buying lands and relocations, and losses declared by the society Enel-
Colbún.
G. Baigorrotegui B.
in Chile was destabilized with an unprecedented network of resistance
that juxtaposed anti-dams and social justice mobilizations from a re-
mote region.
5.3. Lessons learned
As pioneering mobilizations in paralyzing the construction of two
energy technologies for the Chilean energy regime, Chao Pescao and
Patagonia without Dams (PWD) Campaigns were transformed into re-
ferents.
The pressure mechanisms of MODEMA were initiated by local ac-
tivists but by incorporating regional scientists when confronting the
national authorities, these bridging frames potentiated their actions.
They promptly fostered scientific controversy on the inadmissibility of
one EIA for each thermal power plant, without considering the synergic
impacts of three plants. In the case of the CDP, the amplification frames
were focused on spiritual and ecological values in worldwide business
networks. Unfortunately, this media internationalization detracted
from the bridging frames of the local organization, and permitted the
local authorities to continue maintaining the legitimacy of the
Hidroaysén EIA.
The obstruction mechanisms showed the importance of dialogue
(between) or lobby (facing) activists and public officials at the moment
of stopping a private project. These delays were used by the conflicted
media events of the Patagonia Defence Council (CPD) to refute the
project data considering extension frames linked to deficiencies in EIA.
The MODEMA used the same to focus on extension and transformation
frames mechanisms towards shaping conflicted and celebratory media
events inspired in renewable energies.
The overflow mechanisms erupted after the approval of the
Environmental Resolution in both projects. For MODEMA, it was their
attentive cameras ‘eyes when registering the disregard of the public
official whose statement would then become viral, while the CDP
achieved one of the most massive national protests and focalized pro-
tests ever seen in democratic times. The dramaturgical analysis clarifies
the relationship between the mobilizations and the communicative re-
actions from the political and business sector in the public scene. In the
case of Barrancones, President Piñera's telephone call showed how the
stability of the energy market could be precarious too. This moment of
dislocation showed the fragility of the environmental institutions,15 an
issue that would feed subsequent political candidates for the pre-
sidency. Certainly, the paralysis of the investments in the case of Hi-
droaysén showed the stagnation of the market after media disaster events
through the violence shown in Aysén. The newly elected government of
Michelle Bachelet acknowledged the parliamentary investigations that
allowed the rejection of the project in a media television ad.
Mediatized politics has transformed the secrecy and certainties of
energy projects in EIA processes [39]. Collective action and its alliances
with media - human and non-human entanglements - produced media
events, scandals and disasters nurtured by the occurrence of dislocation
events. It is expected that more destabilizations of the energy regime
will appear while efforts to hide the dramatizations of communitas will
continue.
6. A Liminal Energy Transition for Chile
Between 2006 and 2011, Chile had the highest prices (USD$/MWh)
for electricity in Latin America, positioning itself above the average of
OECD member countries ([57]: 6). But this upward pressure on prices
and fears of electricity blackouts has disappeared. The authorities re-
sponsible for energy policy now recognise an energy revolution has
occurred in Chile.
How did this happen? In the typical multilevel perspective,
15
Mainly the Environmental Impact Assessment System.
204
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
variables from technology, pricing, regulations, norms, world-wide
pressures, and the democratic process could be seen as bringing about
changes in Chile’s energy regime. The role of performative dramas in
liminal transition also surely has its place in this story.
The dramatization of socio-environmental-energy conflicts led to an
unexpected crisis in Chile for the political and business classes vested in
hydro dams and coal-fired power plants. Communities joined together
in unexpected alliances and mobilized in a surprising eruption of
communitas provoking the authorities to react. The authorities, in turn,
generated normative and public policy changes to respond with re-
parative actions. However, this liminal transition had accelerated the
change in the energy regime, especially towards green energies. Though
neoliberal policies favor the maintenance of a Civil Society that dra-
matizes its discontent but postpones measures that respond to that
discontent, the communitas that emerged from civil society ignited
aligned green-energy framings and material entanglements in energy
policy. All the while, the media broadcast compelling dramas which
urged new audiences to join.
In 2014, for the first time in the country´s history, Environment
Ministers attended a packed press conference to give the final verdict on
the approval or rejection of an energy project. Turner would describe
this response as a reintegration stage within a liminal transition serving
as a healing exercise to ally those opposing the project to the incoming
government. After delivering the verdict of rejection, the Environment
Minister handed the meeting over to the Energy Minister who closed
the conference criticising the severe deficiencies in Hidroaysén´s
Environmental Resolution (RCA). The verdict paved the way for a new
direction in national energy policy. The democratization of the energy
regime became a new frame in the face of a more critical, distrustful
civil society.
While the notion of citizen participation did not appear in the public
reports produced in 2008, it is mentioned 16 times in the Public Policy
to 2050 document [58]. Changes in the way in which these documents
are compiled are also notable. Symbols and images of front covers of
government documents (Fig. 1) are presented on neutral backgrounds
in line with the latest technical literature, focusing on large-scale in-
vestment in technology and highlighting modernity, security of supply
and orientation towards development. Meanwhile, the mobilizations of
2011 are acknowledged in the Parliamentarian Technical Citizenship
Committee report [34]16, which shows a map of the country, crowned
with a windmill and a title that affirms major system reform. Over the
years, the projected visions depicted in the official reports have given
way to new styles, such as those of smart cities, where landscapes and
iconographies are represented, people and territories are protagonists,
and large energy generators disappear.
In fact, the Road Map to 2050 report (2015) shows images of people
situated among mountains, rivers, houses, and buildings and riding
bicycles with a soft background. The last image (Energy 2050) suggests
a move towards incorporating public opinion as central to energy
policy. Returning to Turner we could say certain reparatory actions
occurred as a form of installing reintegration of disturbed groups. In 2017
in Santiago, Chile, the Ministry of Energy organized a national com-
munity energy event, making this one of the first such meetings in
South America. This is important because for community energy pro-
grams, the energy is conceived mainly from nearby and from small
demand-side collectives.
Finally, faced with a neoliberal landscape that is intent on framing
life within a market perspective and putting the large energy companies
on par with the affected communities, a greater number of
16
Technical Commission (self-convened) to discuss each one of the points
presented by the Presidential Commission (Cover #1 in Fig. 1). This constituted
continuity of the neoliberal principles – both reports were transformed into
material for public policy discussion in the National Energy Plan (Cover number
3, Fig. 1).
G. Baigorrotegui B.
Fig. 1. Changes in front covers of energy public reports.
Sources: < http://maulecoastkeeper.blogspot.com/2011/11/cade-la-comision-que-corria-sola-y.html > , < https://www.gob.cl/noticias/comite-consultivo-del-
ministerio-de-energia-presenta-hoja-de-ruta-2050/ > , < http://globaltrends.thedialogue.org/ > (21/03/19).
dramatizations are expected with EIAs. Certainly the destabilizations in
the form of paralyzations are now common (between 2000 and 2016
55% of conflictive energy projects were rejected environmentally
(Numies, 2017)); citizen participation is apparently more active and
effective. At present, mini-power plants have displaced the hydro-
electric dam projects and the end of coal-fired power plants is projected
for 2050. Nevertheless, the reform of the EIA system is still being dis-
cussed in parliament [63]. The energy transitions referred to as just and
democratic [59] are pending verification.
7. Conclusions
The urgency to decarbonize the global economy is well established
and the main focus is on authorities, their strategies, programs, etc. but
less has been mentioned from the side of civil society allied with par-
ticular contingencies, surprises and materials.
Using Dramaturgical Performative Perspective presents an
205
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
opportunity to track events and actors that do not necessarily react with
a clear strategy, a defined identity, rationality, or goal, such as com-
munitas, but are present as generative agencies creating new scenes
reacting to new conditions. The script based on three performative
drama episodes – pressures, obstructions and overflows – is a result and
not the aim attributed to each actor, environment and situation.
The conception of mediatized politics originating from collective
action, considered as liminal entities or communitas, allows energy
transitions to be observed and analysed in dramatugical-performative
terms. Here, we particularly focused on escalating contentious inter-
actions as socio-technical dramaturgical episodes evidencing disloca-
tion events facing authorities [12] and mediatized politics originating
from social dramas [14] and solidarity within civil society [13].
In this atypical case we probed the appearance of artefactual en-
tanglements, visions, energy policies, programs for communities,
norms, new actors greening the market. These mechanisms (pressure,
obstruction, and overflows), inspired in the dramaturgical and
G. Baigorrotegui B.
posthumanist performative approaches of STS, framings and mediatized
politics, showed the destabilization of an energy regime through the
EIA processes from a different lens. The citizenry mobilized the ima-
ginary of a socio-technical landscape of mature renewable energy that
led to changes in policy and regulations, and rapidly enabled alignment
with international trends in renewable energy technology transfer pri-
cing.
Decarbonization of economies is an important challenge in socio-
technical transitions but becomes a stronger force of change and de-
stabilization when it connects with recognition of actors, redistribution
of power and rights, among other demands [62,73], all historically
registered in the under-studied transitions in the global South, where
energy regimes are dependent on renewable technology transfers.
With this study we consider transitions as a phenomenon dependent
on its observational framework [8,71]. Although there are limits to the
generalization of results, approaching transitions in this way suggests
that energy transitions of the liminal type will become increasingly
objective as soon as they are linked to other communitas that can mo-
bilize framing, obstructions and overflows in different spaces of regu-
lated public participation, not exclusively the EIAs. In this study liminal
energy transition emerges from classic and novel ways of civil society
resistance that here is represented in three dramaturgical stages per-
formed from regime destabilization entanglements. It remains to be
seen to what extent liminal transitions promote more sustainable, de-
mocratic and fair energy regimes, or on the contrary adjust neoliberal
arrangements, where civil society continues to be more occupied with
dramatizing conflicts than negotiating, producing and enjoying energy
technologies in their territories. Indeed, energy-regime destabilization
experiences provide a lens to observe liminal energy transitions and
that lens shows how imperceptible subjects and their ways of life can
act as alterpolitics in energy transitions.
Acknowledgments
I greatly appreciate the members of MODEMA and CDP, the re-
gional and local public officials for the delivery of their time in the field
work of this research in Choros, Punta Choros, La Serena, Coquimbo,
Coyhaique, Cochrane, Caleta Tortel and Villa O'higgins. The current
version would not be possible without the final editing and translation
work done by Diane Greenstein and initial of Alice Haynes. I also ap-
preciate the comments of Shobita Parthasarathy in the first versions of
the text and the anonymous reviewers of this journal that prompted me
to take a clearer turn in the DPP approach. This research was funded by
the Fondecyt Iniciación 11121455 project, Fondecyt Regular 1181065,
Directorate of Scientific and Technological Research Dicyt 091894BB
and Millennium Nucleus of Research in Energy and Society of the
Government of Chile.
References
[1] M.E. Ministerio de Energía, Agenda de Energía. Un desafío país, progreso para
todos, Gobierno de Chile, Santiago, 2014 Available at http://es.slideshare.net/
minenergia/agenda-energtica (Accessed 19 October 2018).
[2] P. Varas, M. Tironi, H. Rudnick, N. Rodríguez, Latinamerica goes electric, IEEE
(May/June) (2013) 66–75.
[3] A. Pueyo, Enabling frameworks for low-carbon technology transfer to small emer-
ging economies: Analysis of ten case studies in Chile, Energy Policy 53 (2013)
370–380.
[4] A. Hira, L. Amaya, Does energy integrate? Energy Policy 31 (2003) 185–199.
[5] A. Smith, G. Verbong, D. Loorbach (Eds.), Civil society in energy transitions, 2012,
pp. 180–202.
[6] F. Geels, B. Verhees, Cultural legitimacy and framing struggles in innovations
journeys: a cultural-performative perspective and a case study of Dutch nuclear
energy (1945-1986), Technological Forecasting and Social Change 78 (2011)
910–930.
[7] B. Sovacool, J. Axsen, S. Sorrell, Promoting novelty, rigor, and style in energy social
science: towards codes of practice for appropriate methods and research design,
Energy Research & Social Science 45 (2018) 12–42.
[8] K. Barad, Posthumanist performativity: Towards an Understanding of how matter
comes to matter, Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2003 (28/3) (2003)
206
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
801–831.
[9] M. Callon, An essay on framing and overflowing: economic externalities revisited by
sociology. The law of the market, Blackwell, London, 1998.
[10] S. Ureta, A very public mess: Problematizing the “participative turn” in energy
policy in Chile, Energy Research & Social Change 29 (2017) 127–134.
[11] A. Smith, The alternative technology movement: an analysis of its framing and
negotiation of technology development, Research in Human Ecology 12 (2) (2005)
106–119.
[12] M. Hajer, Authoritative Governance. Policy-making in the Age of Mediatization,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009.
[13] S. Cottle, Mediatized Rituals: Beyond manufacturing consent, Media, Culture and
Society 28 (3) (2006) 411–432.
[14] V. Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure, Adline Publishing, New
York, 1969.
[15] V. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1974.
[16] B. Pfaffenberger, Technological Drama, Science, Technology and Human Values 17
(3) (1992) 282–312.
[17] S. Cottle, Reporting Demonstrations: the Changing media politics of dissent, Media,
Culture and Society 30 (6) (2008) 853–872.
[18] J. Chilvers, N. Longhurst, Participation in transition(s): Reconceiving public en-
gagements in energy transitions as co-produced, emergent and diverse, Journal of
Environmental Policy and Planning 18 (2016) 585–607.
[19] I. Rodríguez-Giralt, Social Movements as Actor-Networks: Prospects for a
Symmetrical Approach to Doñana’s Environmental Protests, Convergencia 18 (56)
(2011) 13–35 mayo-agosto.
[20] F. Geels, Technological transitions as evolutionary configuration processes: A multi-
level perspective and a case-study, Research Policy 31 (8/9) (2002) 1257–1274.
[21] A. Smith, A. Stirling, F. Berkhout, The governance of sustainable socio-technical
transitions, Research Policy 34 (2005) 1491–1510.
[22] N. Marres, J. Lezaun, Materials and devices of the public: an introduction, Economy
and Society 40 (2011) 489–509.
[23] G. Baigorrotegui, M. Santander, Localities Facing the Construction of Fossil-Fuel
Power Plants. Two Experiences to Address the Hostile Face of Electricity
Infrastructures, in: J. López Cerezo, B. Laspra (Eds.), Philosophy of Engineering and
Technology. Contemporary Work form the Spanish Speaking Community, Springer,
Oviedo, 2018, pp. 223–238.
[24] S. Moore, E. Hackett, The Construction of Technology and Place: Concentrating
solar Power Conflicts in the United States, Energy Research & Social Science 11
(2016) 67–78.
[25] D. Snow, E. Burke, S. Worden, R. Benford, Frame Alignment Processes,
Micromobilization, and Movement Participation, American Sociological Review 51
(4) (1986) 464–481.
[26] H. Schaffer, From NIMBY to NIABY: Regional mobilization against liquefied natural
gas in the United States, Environmental Politics 20 (6) (2011) 786–806.
[27] M. Lawhon, J. Murphy, Socio-technical regimes and sustainability transitions:
Insights from political ecology, Progress in Human Geography 36 (354) (2012) 378.
[28] R. Millar, CGE, Compañía General de Electricidad. Cien años de energía en Chile
1905-2005, Historia 40 (1) (2007) 169–172.
[29] E. Minder, Modelación hidrológica en el Sistema Interconectado Central. Tesis
Magíster en Ciencias de la Ingeniería, PUC, Santiago, 1997 Available at http://
web.ing.puc.cl/˜power/paperspdf/minder.pdf (Accessed 19 October 2018).
[30] H. Matthei, Institucionalidad normativa del sector eléctrico, Memoria de prueba
facultad de Derecho, Universidad Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, 2001 Available at:
http://web.ing.puc.cl/˜power/paperspdf/mattheihedy.pdf (Accessed 8 June 2016).
[31] IEA International Energy Agency, Chile Energy Policy Review, OECD/IEA, Paris,
2009 Available athttp://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/
chile2009.pdf (Accessed 8 June 2016).
[32] M. Tironi, J. Barandiarán, Neoliberalism as Political Technology: Expertise, Energy
and Democracy in Chile, in: E. Medina, I. da Costa, C. Homes (Eds.), Beyond
Imported Magic. Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America, MIT
press, Cambridge, 2014, pp. 305–329.
[33] G. Marin, P. Rozas, Los grupos transnacionales y la crisis. El caso Chileno, Editorial
Nueva América, Buenos Aires, 1988.
[34] CCTP Comisión Ciudadana Técnico Parlamentaria, Chile necesita una gran reforma
energética. Propuesta de la Comisión Ciudadana Técnico Parlamentaria para la
transición hacia un desarrollo eléctrico limpio, seguro, sustentable y justo, Comité
editorial CCTP, Santiago, 2011.
[35] C. Ibarra, R. O’ Ryan, B. Silva, Applying knowledge governance to understand the
role of science in environmental regulation: the case of arsenic in Chile,
Environmental Science and Policy 86 (2018) 115–124.
[36] J. Barandiarán, Science and Environment in Chile. The Politics of expert advice in a
Neoliberal democracy, MIT, Cambridge, 2018.
[37] PNUD Programa Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, Informe Desarrollo Humano
en Chile 2015, PNUD, Santiago, 2015.
[38] A. Mayol, No al lucro. De las crisis del modelo a la nueva era política, Debate,
Santiago, 2012.
[39] R. Sohr, Así no podemos seguir. Política, Energía y Medioambiente, Random Hause
Mondadori, Santiago, 2013.
[40] S. Millaleo, La ciberpolítica de los movimientos sociales en Chile: algunas reflex-
iones, y experiencias, Revista Anales, (2011) Séptima Serie, Nº 2, noviembre: 89-
104.
[41] M. Spoerer, Participación Ciudadana e incidencia política: estudio del caso
Barrancones, Persona y Sociedad XXVII (1) (2013) 17–24.
[42] T.H. Romero, A.H. Romero, X. Toledo, Agua, poder y discursos en el conflicto socio-
territorial por la construcción de represas hidroeléctricas en la Patagonia Chilena,
Anuario de Estudios Americanos 66 (2) (2009) 81–103.
G. Baigorrotegui B.
[43] P. Segura, F. Bourlon, Represas en Aysén: ¿traba o trampolín para el desarrollo
turístico regional? Sociedad hoy 20 (2011) 145–157.
[44] VVAA, Análisis de Potenciales efectos ambientales de la Operación de Proyectos
Termoeléctricos en Ambientes Marinos en la Región de Coquimbo, CNE, Santiago,
2008.
[45] R. Sohr, Chile a ciegas. La triste realidad de nuestro modelo energético, Random
House Mondadori, Santiago, 2012.
[46] D. Estrada, Ambiente-Chile: Amenazas a activistas contrarios a termoeléctricas.
Inter Press Service, (2009) (Accessed 9 march 2019), http://www.ipsnoticias.net/
2009/08/ambiente-chile-amenazas-a-activistas-contrarios-a-termoelectricas/.
[47] C. Ruiz, El polémico mensaje de texto de evaluadora de Conama. 24/08/10. El
Observatodo.cl, Available at http://www.elobservatodo.cl/noticia/sociedad/el-
polemico-mensaje-de-texto-de-evaluadora-de-conama (Accessed 19 October 2018)
(2010).
[48] F. Cárcamo, M. Cortés, L. Ortega, F. Squeo, C. Gaymer, Crónica de un conflicto
anunciado: Tres centrales termoeléctricas a carbón en un hotspot de biodiversidad
de importancia mundial, Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 84 (2011) 171–180.
[49] Bloomberg, North Face Founder Tompkins Battles Endesa Over Patagonia Dams. 3/
03/2006, Available athttp://article.wn.com/view/2006/03/03/North_Face_
Founder_Tompkins_Battles_Endesa_Over_Patagonia_Da/ (Accessed 8 June 2016)
(2006).
[50] S. Reyes, J. Rodríguez, Proyecto Hidroaysén: Capitalismo extractivista, regulación
estatal y acción colectiva en la Patagonia, Polis 40 (2015) 1–21.
[51] T.H. Romero, Environmental Conflicts and Historical Political Ecology: A genealogy
of the construction of dams in Chilean Patagonia, PhD in Human Geography
University of Manchester, Manchester, 2013.
[52] HRC Report, Informe de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos, Nacionalidad y
Ciudadanía, Constituida en Especial Investigadora de las Eventuales Irregularidades
en el Proceso de Aprobación del Proyecto de la Central Hidroeléctrica HidroAysén,
Cámara de Diputados Chile, Santiago, 2012 Available athttp://www.camara.cl/pdf.
aspx?prmid=3120&prmtipo=SOBRETABLA (Accessed 8 June 2016).
[53] Terram, Mayoría de tortelinos rechazó represas Baker y Pascua, (2009) (Accessed
on 9 March 2019), https://www.terram.cl/2008/03/mayoria_de_tortelinos_
rechazo_represas_baker_y_pascua/.
[54] C. Schaeffer, M. Smits, From matter of facts to places of concern? Energy, en-
vironmental movements and place-making in Chile and Thailand, Geoforum 65
(2015) 146–157.
[55] G. Vince, Dams for Patagonia, Science 329 (2010) 382–385.
[56] P. Segura, La investigación que cuestiona los planes de forestación de las
hidroeléctricas. EPD, 9/10/10, Available athttp://www.elpatagondomingo.cl/
forestacion-es-cuestionada-por-investigadores/ (Accessed 19 October 2018) (2010).
[57] BCN Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, Comparación de precios de elec-
tricidad en Chile y países de la OCDE y América Latina. Informe, Biblioteca
Congreso, Santiago, 2012.
[58] ME Ministerio de Energía, Energía 2050. Política Energética Energética de Chile,
Gobierno de Chile, Santiago, 2015.
[59] B. Sovacool, M. Dworkin (Eds.), Global Energy Justice, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2014.
207
Energy Research & Social Science 55 (2019) 198–207
[60] G. Baigorrotegui, Coal-fired thermal power plants under pressure in Chile, in:
G. Baigorrotegui, S. Jimenez, M. Palacio (Eds.), Estudios de Ciencia, Tecnología y
Sociedad en América Latina. Balances y Perspectivas, Fondo Editorial ITM,
Medellín, 2013, pp. 81–109.
[61] S. Berstein, Una mirada retrospectiva a la crisis del gas natural y acciones para el
futuro, in: M. Domper, C. Cortés (Eds.), Gas Natural: lecciones de una crisis,
Libertad y Desarrollo, Santiago, 2008, pp. 199–233.
[62] M. Burke, J. Stephens, Energy democracy: Goals and Policy Instruments for socio-
technical transitions, Energy Research and Social Science. 33 (2017) 35–48.
[63] CSCP Comisión Sindical Ciudadana Parlamentaria, Propuesta para la Reforma al
Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental, Chile Sustentable, Santiago, 2016
Available here: http://www.fima.cl/site/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CSCP-
SEIA-FINAL-08.08.16.pdf. (29/09/17).
[64] D. Haraway, Staying with the trouble. Making kin in the Chthulucene, Duke
University Press, Durham, 2016.
[65] La Tercera, Colbún recomienda a Hidroaysén suspender ingreso de EIA para línea
de transmisión, 30/05/12. Available at http://www.latercera.com/noticia/
negocios/2012/05/655-463707-9-colbun-recomienda-a-hidroaysen-suspender-
ingreso-de-eia-para-linea-de.shtml (Accessed 19 October 2018) (2012).
[66] La Tercera, Matte acusa “presión indebida” de ONG de EE.UU. por campaña contra
CMPC, (2008) (Accessed 19 October 2018), http://www2.latercera.com/noticia/
matte-acusa-presion-indebida-de-ong-de-ee-uu-por-campana-contra-cmpc/.
[67] S. Mancilla, La crisis energética en Chile, RIL, Santiago, 2009.
[68] L. Mazzei, Los británicos y el carbón en Chile, Atenea 475 (1997) 137–167.
[69] A. Morgan-Thomas, Schatzki and Techno-Organizational Practice, in: N. Mitev,
A. Morgan-Thomas, P. Lorino, F.X. de Vaujany, Y. Nama (Eds.), Materiality and
Managerial Techniques. Technology, Work and Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan,
Cham, 2018, pp. 307–324.
[70] R. Názer, J. Couyoumdjian, P. Camus, CGE Compañía General de Electricidad: cien
años de historia en Chile: 1905-2005, PUC, Santiago, 2005.
[71] A. Pickering, Living in the Material World, in: F.X. de Vaujany, N. Mitev (Eds.),
Materiality and Space. Technology, Work and Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2013, pp. 24–40.
[72] A. Pinto, La ofensiva contra el Estado-Económico, Estudios Cieplan 21 (Junio)
(1987) 117–127.
[73] A. Pinto, A. Flisfisch, Transformaciones, logros y desafíos: Democracia, Ciudadanía
y Estado, in: A. Pinto, A. Flisfisch (Eds.), El Estado de Ciudadanía.
Transformaciones, logros y desafíos del Estado en América Latina en el siglo XXI,
Random House Mondadori, Buenos Aires, 2011, pp. 15–20.
[74] A. Smith, Energy governance: the challenges of sustainability, in: I. Scrase,
G. McKerron (Eds.), Civil Society in Sutainable Energy Transitions, 2009, pp.
54–75.
[75] E. Tironi, Abierta. Gestión de controversias y justificaciones, Uqbar edit, Santiago,
2011.
[76] L. Infanti, Danos hoy el agua de cada día. Carta Pastoral, Obispado Apostólico,
Aysén, 2008 Available athttp://www.terram.cl/images/patagonia/danos-hoy-el-
agua-de-cada-dia.pdf (Accessed 19 October 2018).