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- Convenor:
-
Ben Campbell
(Durham University)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Stream:
- Environment
- Location:
- Examination Schools Room 12
- Start time:
- 19 September, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Concerns about rethinking consumerist technological habits and assumptions in the high-energy usage parts of the globe have collided with recognition of the failure to offer even a modicum of energy access in off-grid parts. This poses big questions for re-imagining social relationships with energy.
Long Abstract:
Since the mid 2000s, the anthropology of energy has been gaining momentum, and some heat. Concerns about rethinking consumerist technological habits and assumptions in the high-energy usage parts of the globe have collided with recognition of the failure to offer even a modicum of useful energy appliances in off-grid parts of the map, to give rise to some great questions for re-imagining social relationships with energy. The inequalities of energy distribution and the resistance of communities to accept inappropriate energy 'solutions' to livelihood problems (improved cookstoves), or intrusive infrastructures (wind farms or hydro-dams) open up Energising Social Worlds to public deliberation and conflict (generating both 'cool rationalities' and hot air in philosopher John Barry's rhetorical approach). The social sciences are being mobilised to make useful interdisciplinary contributions to research programmes designed to reduce emissions, and be energy smart. Anthropology's familiar conceptual and methodological resources have been picked up by geographers and even engineers to make sense of very unintended consequences of energy provision, and to get closer to the mythical, and usually misbehaving, 'human end-user'. This panel invites papers on all these issues, and to anthropologists who are interested to question the notion of energy in its Euro-centric, fossil fuel- and grid-centric imaginaries of propelling change, and to use the ethnographic record to help reimagine energy as intrinsic to the warmth, light, movement and convertible potential of social worlds.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Charlotte Ray (Independent Researcher)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will explore how social science methods are used in the Global South to better understand access to energy.
Paper long abstract:
It is widely acknowledged that focusing on technology alone using predominantly hardware-oriented approaches does not solve the challenge of providing sustainable energy for all. Rather, incorporating wider socio-cultural 'software' approaches to explore the non-technical dimensions of energy access can provide greater understanding on what people use and why. Despite this acknowledgement, however, there is still a heavy reliance on and desire for technocratic, quantitative solutions to address energy access. It begs a reflection of Schumacher when he wrote in 1973 "that whatever evidence of a new way of doing things may be provided, 'old dogs cannot learn new tricks'".
The object of this presentation is twofold. First, how are the conceptual and methodological resources used by anthropologists to investigate energy access translated across borders? Given that many of the methods used are largely focused in the Global North, how do researchers in the Global South interpret, modify and challenge these resources so that they are not only useful but also provide rich empirical data. Second, drawing on empirical evidence from across East, West and southern Africa, this presentation brings together interdisciplinary perspectives and explores the disparities that exist between energy technologies and user-based priorities. Attention is drawn to how spatial variations in cooking, lighting and charging practices (influenced by culture, socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, gender, location, complex exchange networks etc.) can have a significant influence on the acceptability, adoption and sustainability of various energy technologies.
Britta Turner Raihana Ferdous (Glasgow University)
Paper short abstract:
Three ethnographies with Solar Home System users in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka show how new flows of energy assemble different social worlds.
Paper long abstract:
A growing interdisciplinary field of 'energy ethnographies' has begun shedding light on the kinds of social worlds which emerge through international efforts to provide access to energy. This paper uses a comparative analysis of 3 different ethnographies undertaken with users of off-grid solar home systems in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to question what the introduction of new energies have set in motion in these different places. The paper focuses in particular on the manner in which new relationships are brought into being: relationships between technology, sunlight and belief systems, relationships between neighbors and relationships between consumers, solar installers and micro-finance institutions. Showing how these new relationships and social worlds are both ambiguous and contingent, the paper directs attention towards the capacity of flows of energy to assemble as opposed to power social worlds.
Kirsten Campbell (Loughborough University)
Paper short abstract:
Based on research in rural eastern India, this paper explores the social politics around off-grid solar energy systems. It examines the ways in which these technologies can embody and reproduce wider social structures, such as those relating to caste, gender, religion and ethnicity.
Paper long abstract:
The widespread assumption of electricity access as a catalyst for modernity and development in rural India, combined with the heavily politicised absence of electricity grid connectivity in many areas, has opened a space in which decentralised energy technology has become perceived as the 'saviour' of remote villages. Off-grid energy, particularly solar energy, has become synonymous with developmental narratives promising 'self-sufficiency', 'sustainability' and 'empowerment'. Remote, often marginalised communities find themselves at the forefront of technological movements seeking to provide cleaner, smarter and more marketable energy to rural populations. However, decentralised energy cannot be separated from the society within which it is installed, used and governed.
This paper presents research drawing on fieldwork at one of India's first smart solar micro-grids, installed in a forest reserve in eastern India. It explores the ways in which both energy poverty and decentralised energy provision manifest wider societal hierarchies and power structures, particularly those relating to caste, gender, religion and ethnicity. This paper explores the biases and prejudices existing between rural and urbanite, often portrayed as between 'uneducated' and marginalised end-users and 'educated' technologists, as well as mainstream societal standards of what development is and how lives 'should' be lived. These relationships are materialised within energy projects and shape the experiences of those living on the periphery of social and political inclusion.
Asli Altinisik (American University of Beirut)
Paper short abstract:
Electricity cuts in Beirut may add up to more than three hours per day, and are only partially scheduled. This paper examines Beirutis' relationship with electricity as a source of energy.
Paper long abstract:
Every three hours between 9:00 and 21:00, electricity in Beirut is cut for an uncertain period of time. This daily on-and-off relationship has immediate and material consequences: electric appliances run their course of life faster and constant reliance on energy generators pressures the economy as well as the environment. Creative responses have emerged at the face of this predicament, such as the mobile application that estimates the timings of electricity cuts and notifies the users. These and other material consequences of erratic electricity supply are compounded by heightened intellectual and emotional judgments, for instance a disbelief in the government in fulfilling its primary responsibilities. Infrastructure, and consequently electricity, is considered to be the most available in urban centers. Lebanon presents a counterintuitive case where the capital city has less consistent access to electricity than some other cities; the most central neighborhoods of Beirut experience power cuts the most. To cope with this, individuals and institutions mobilize extra resources to stay connected to the grid. An inexorable pursuit of electric energy suggests a normalization of electricity in urban daily life. How is electricity taken for granted in Beirut? What are the everyday manifestations of this internalization? Based on interviews with residents of Beirut, this paper will offer non-hierarchizing glimpses of the interplay between a society and electricity.