Activists Take Lighting Into Their Own Hands
October 14, 2022
In Paris, activists are using their nimble athletic skills to turn off what they consider wasteful commercial lighting in this City of Light, as their way to help France save energy and offset war-related disruptions to Europe’s gas supplies. Their actions capture some of the spirit of the “power thieves” of Mexico City early last century. As Diana J. Montaño recounts in Issues, the ladrones de luz, responding to what they saw as marginalizing plans to electrify their city, empowered citizens as they “debated, embraced, appropriated, rejected, and shaped the ways in which electricity entered their lives and spaces.”