Paper short abstract:

This research explores how the systemic energy crisis was experienced during the 1990s in Georgia including the effects on daily life, health, and well-being. It contributes to understanding the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies to ease energy-related hardship during societal transformations

Paper long abstract:

This study investigates the lived experience of a decade-long energy crisis in post-Soviet Georgia during the 1990s. During this decade, the country transitioned from a Soviet Union republic to an independent state, resulting in the complete breakdown of the existing economic system, including the energy infrastructure, and widespread energy poverty. This research explores how the systemic energy crisis was experienced during the 1990s in Georgia, including the effects on daily life, health, and well-being. Additionally, it examines the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies used to ease energy-related hardship.

While designing this research, I was guided by the consideration that data about the lived experience of energy-related hardship in Georgia during the 1990s are not readily available and need to be collected by tapping into the memory and reflections of those who lived through this historical period. Therefore, for this study the central methods of data collection are oral history and, to some extent, autoethnography.

The study contributes to advancing our understanding about how individuals and communities experience transformative change that impacts energy infrastructure and energy services, and which adaptive mechanisms or preventive strategies may ease energy-related hardship during large-scale societal transformations. This understanding can help in planning, managing, and navigating just energy transition processes. As for the methodological considerations, both oral history and autoethnography have the potential to bring the voices of living witnesses into the research more forcefully, and to put a human face on societal transformations and historical processes.