STRATIGRAPHY OF TRANSITION: MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY OF SUSTAINABLE HABITAT IN OLACAPATO.

Abstract

The current global energy transition promotes the installation of renewable megaprojects in the. Andean Puna, imposing infrastructures that frequently collide with the material reality of local communities. This article analyzes how the sedimentation of energy technology defines the limits and exclusions of a sustainable habitat, using the town of Olacapato (Salta, Argentina) as a case study. Through a mixed and situated methodological approach, supported by the theoretical frameworks of media archaeology and cultural techniques, the concept of "habitat stratigraphy" is proposed to decode the territory as a material archive in friction. Contrasting with empirical data from the 2024 Energy Census reveals a fracture between the hegemonic stratum of the Cauchari Solar Park—which operates as an extractive grid turning its back on the population—and a basal stratum defined by the precariousness of diesel generators, electrical risk, daily blackouts, and the resilient use of biomass. It concludes that urban-architectural sustainability requires abandoning the design illusion of the tabula rasa, dismantling these borders of material exclusion to integrate the legitimate community demands for energy sovereignty and epistemic justice