Industrial-scale wind energy in Italian southern Apennine: territorio grabbing, value extraction and democracy

Abstract

This paper analyses the penetration of industrial-scale wind energy in the south Italy provinces of Benevento, Avellino, Foggia and Potenza, which host 43 per cent of national installed capacity. Such a process has induced transformations affecting (i) historical contextualised socio-ecological patterns as a consequence of their inclusion into value extraction chains and (ii) substantive democratic dynamics at the local level. The underlying theoretical framework interprets the green economy or green capitalism as a transformation of capitalism mode of regulation in accordance with ecological modernisation theories. More precisely, it fits into the political ecology debate around extractivism, primitive accumulation, land grabbing and environmentality. The paper develops by first giving an account of the investment penetration, then describing extractive mechanisms in terms of practices and actors. The last two sections explore effects of such processes on territorial democracy and propose the concept of ‘territorio’ grabbing as an analytical innovation.