This book presents current research in the political ecology of indigenous revival and its role in nature conservation in critical areas in the Americas. An important contribution to evolving studies on conservation of sacred natural sites (SNS), the book elucidates the complexity of development scenarios within cultural landscapes related to the appropriation of religion, environmental change in indigenous territories, and new conservation management approaches. Indigeneity and the Sacred explores how these struggles for land, rights, and political power are embedded within physical landscapes, and how indigenous identity is reconstituted as globalizing forces simultaneously threaten and promote the notion of indigeneity.

In the US South, wood-based bioenergy schemes are being promoted and implemented through a powerful vision merging social, environmental, and economic benefits for rural, forest-dependent communities. While this dominant narrative has led to heavy investment in experimental technologies and rural development, many complexities and complications have emerged during implementation. Forests as Fuel draws on extensive multi-sited ethnography to ground the story of wood-based bioenergy in the biophysical, economic, political, social, and cultural landscape of this region. This book contextualizes energy issues within the history and potential futures of the region's forested landscapes, highlighting the impacts of varying perceptions of climate change and complex racial dynamics. Eschewing simple answers, the authors illuminate the points of friction that occur as competing visions of bioenergy development confront each other to variously support, reshape, contest, or reject bioenergy development. Building on recent conceptual advances in studies of sociotechnical imaginaries, environmental history, and energy justice, the authors present a careful and nuanced analysis that can provide guidance for promoting meaningful participation of local community members in renewable energy policy and production while recognizing the complex interplay of factors affecting its implementation in local places.

This book presents current research in the political ecology of indigenous revival and its role in nature conservation in critical areas in the Americas. An important contribution to evolving studies on conservation of sacred natural sites (SNS), the book elucidates the complexity of development scenarios within cultural landscapes related to the appropriation of religion, environmental change in indigenous territories, and new conservation management approaches. Indigeneity and the Sacred explores how these struggles for land, rights, and political power are embedded within physical landscapes, and how indigenous identity is reconstituted as globalizing forces simultaneously threaten and promote the notion of indigeneity.