Renewable Energy and Settler Colonialism

This article is a republication from JSTOR Daily. It explores what we can learn from colonial legacies in our pursuit of sustainable futures.

As Diné scholar Andrew Curley argues in his book, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation, “colonialism is a shape-shifter.” Amid the current sustainability renaissance, green technologies such as photovoltaic solar fields, wind turbines, geothermal plants, and hydroelectric dams are seen as pathways to a carbon-free energy system and tools to combat climate change. However, the benefits of renewable energy—such as environmental gains, wealth, sovereignty, and agency—are not evenly distributed. Infrastructure development, including renewable energy, often reinforces the ongoing project of settler colonialism, particularly in the United States.

Diné (Navajo) and Dakota scholar B.K. Tom Goldtooth details the history of U.S. colonialism and imperialism concerning natural resources, noting that as Indigenous reservations were established through treaties, the state used creative means to retain control over Tribal coal, gold, oil, gas, and now lands for renewable energy (JSTOR). According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Tribal lands, which make up about 5 percent of U.S. land, have the potential to host 10 percent of all energy resources, both renewable and non-renewable. However, these lands are particularly susceptible to corporate renewable energy expansion due to limited land use regulations and the lack of financial incentives or access to capital for tribes to develop energy infrastructure. As a result, Tribes often lease land for energy projects without gaining ownership benefits, electricity access, environmental credits, or tax advantages, which instead go to corporations and metropolitan areas that control industry operations.

Diné scholar Melanie K. Yazzie’s work reveals that Tribal Nations, as landowners, lose bargaining power against transnational energy corporations over time (JSTOR). Furthermore, their inability to engage on the international stage undermines Tribal sovereignty, leaving them with little influence over energy policy and trade. Despite this systemic violence, Diné scholars, land defenders, and activists, as Yazzie underscores, have actively resisted the erasure, dispossession, and exploitation that define state-Tribal relations in renewable energy development.

For the Diné, whose ancestral lands lie in the U.S. Southwest, renewable energy projects offer a chance to reduce dependence on coal. As Curley documents, coal mining on Navajo lands over the past six decades has provided limited forms of sovereignty and capital to support Tribal governance. Transitioning to green energy could align with Indigenous futurity by providing clean, sovereign energy supplies, reliable electricity, revenue to support land rematriation, and opportunities for workforce development.

Indigenous scholars have consistently proposed alternatives to colonial-capitalist growth models that honor ancestral knowledge, spirituality, reciprocity, care, and community. Yazzie writes that “the future demands nothing less of the conditions of vibrant futurity in which life in its entirety is able to thrive free from the violence of empire.” This shift involves more than just sourcing clean energy and mitigating climate change. It also requires confronting capitalist growth, settler colonialism, and corporate-backed development to achieve sovereignty, agency, and liberation for Indigenous communities. The history of Navajo experiences during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which devastated the community due to systemic neglect and colonialism, serves as a stark reminder of the lasting impacts of colonial structures (JSTOR Daily).

Renewable energy must be reimagined not just as a technical solution but as a means to empower Indigenous peoples and dismantle oppressive structures that have persisted for centuries.