Abstract horizons and concrete winds : the politics of development in the Cape Wind project

This paper discusses the politics of the first proposed offshore wind turbine development in the United States, Cape Wind. I analyze two sides of this conflict; 1) How residents’ protests of the turbines have problematized large scale renewable energy projects by equating the politics of Cape Wind to capitalist exploitation of land and resources. The ways residents have protested Cape Wind draws parallels between building turbines and exploitation of local resources, something that is more commonly associated with the development of traditional carbon-based fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. 2) I argue that the residents who opposed the project contributed to the developer’s ability to build in Nantucket Sound by contributing to a process of rendering the area technical (Li 2007). My goal is to provide insight into the particular ways the wind and Nantucket Sound has been made the target of development, and also to show how a certain class of Cape Cod residents reacted to the project.Arts, Faculty ofAnthropology, Department ofGraduat