Ph.D. project: Fighting Over Renewable Energy Projects: Norms, Indigenous Rights, and Contestation in Kenya

The renewable energy transition is finally getting more traction. In Kenya, which has great potential for wind and geothermal energy especially, a rise in renewable energy investments is evident. Unfortunately, such investments can have problematic social and environmental impacts, as can be found in the cases of the Lake Turkana Wind Power project and the Olkaria Geothermal Power plants. Through extensive fieldwork – and using the analytical concepts of holding power and reassembling – Ilse’s project examines how the stakeholders in both cases understand, use, and contest global norms of indigenous rights. It evaluates the effects of such contestation on access to land and sustainable development.