Karina Martinez and Stephanie Buechler’s research project

Patriarchy and (electric) power? A feminist political ecology of solar energy use in Mexico and the United States

This collaborative article was published in the Energy Research & Social Science Journal(link is external), December 2020.

This research project was a binational study of large and small-scale wind and solar energy projects in Arizona and Mexico and was conducted by a binational research team.  An energy justice framework was used to explore the effects of these projects on women's daily lives and livelihoods.  Large-scale renewable energy projects were used to supply urban populations with energy, whereas small-scale renewable energy projects were tailored by user groups in both rural and urban locations to facilitate multiple facets of women's needs.  An energy justice frame served to examine these issues from the standpoint of place, age, gender and social class.  Read the article here.

Karina Guadalupe Martínez-Molina

Karina Martinez

Karina Guadalupe Martinez Molina is an international student from Mexico who is currently in her second year of her PhD studies in the department of Arid Lands Resource Sciences at the University of Arizona. 

Prior to her doctoral studies, she obtained her MA in the Master's in Development Practice program in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona, during which she conducted a study on energy poverty in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. She also graduated with honors in her undergrad course: Environmental Engineering, Sonora State University, Sonora, Mexico.

She participated with Dr. Stephanie Buechler and Mexican colleagues in the binational research project: Women & Renewable Energy in Arizona and Zacatecas which aimed to explore the relationship between gender and renewable energies in Zacatecas, Mexico and Arizona, United States, in order to identify how renewable energy projects can contribute to meet women's energy needs.

Stephanie Buechler is an Associate Professor Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona

Stephanie Buechler

Stephanie Buechler has a background in public policy, sociology and geography. Her work has focused on the intersections of water and energy resources, environmental change, agriculture, sustainability planning, poverty, youth and gender.

Buechler has worked with bi-national, applied research teams and also non-profit and grassroots organizations and government agencies on these issues. Recently, her work has focused on women’s use of renewable energy technologies in Zacatecas, Mexico and Arizona, urban agriculture under water scarcity in Tucson’s low-income neighborhoods, youth’s decision-making in the context of climate change in rural Sonora, Mexico; women’s innovations in water and climate change adaptation in Sonora, Mexico and cross-border perceptions of the international wastewater treatment plant of Nogales.  Her publications include: Patriarchy and (electric) Power? A Feminist Political Ecology of Solar Energy Use in Mexico and the United States (Energy Research and Social Science, forthcoming fall 2020); Livelihoods with Multiple Stressors: Gendered Youth Decision-making Under Global Change in Northwest Mexico (Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. 2019); Re-Linking Governance of Energy with Livelihoods and Irrigation in Uttarakhand, India (Water, 2016); A Political Ecology of Women, Water and Global Environmental Change (edited book with A.M Hanson, Routledge, 2015).