Energy Transition in Indian Country: some thoughts from ongoing research

Energy transition is a much discussed topic. We talk about it at the global scale when we see national representatives meeting in some faraway place to discuss reducing total carbon emissions at some indeterminate time in the future (we all are more or less familiar with that story). But energy transition also plays out at the “local” scale, or among and between communities who are locked into a regional network of energy production. Based on my previous research on the Navajo coal economy, and building on new findings on oil and gas production in Southern Ute, I will discuss a central point about tribes and energy production: the factors contributing to tribal participation or resistance to the constellation of rhetoric and activities called ‘energy transition’ is largely informed by longer standing colonial inequalities and experiences.