Energy On the Move: longitudinal perspectives on energy transitions among marginal populations (a comparative study)

Completed

Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Development Studies)
AREA STUDIES (Middle Eastern and African Studies)
AREA STUDIES (Asian Studies)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Other sociological economical and environmental impact of energy)

Dr B Campbell
Anthropolog
Durham University

Standard

ESRC

01 October 2017

30 September 2018

12 months

£206,317

North East

DfId

Dr B Campbell, Anthropolog, Durham University

Dr F L Adamu, UNLISTED, Usmanu Danfodiyo University
Dr P Dayil, UNLISTED, University of Jos
Miss R Ferdous, Anthropolog, Durham University
Dr S Kharel, UNLISTED, Social Science baha
Dr D Leonardi, History, Durham University
Dr l N Moro, UNLISTED, Rift Valley Institute (RVI)
Dr M Nadiruzzaman, UNLISTED, World Vision International
Professor G Porter, Anthropolog, Durham University

This main objective of this project is to understand better and develop routes to successful energy transition for the poorest and most disadvantaged in four low-income countries: Nepal, Bangladesh, South Sudan and Nigeria. We focus on the lived experiences of marginal women, men and youth who persistently fall outside current market development mechanisms, un-connected with normal urban infrastructure networks or services. They must also cope with challenges of climate change and other environmental disasters in conditions of political fragility. In this one-year pilot study (shaped by the budget and time frame available) we will focus on a capital city peri-urban site in each country where there are many recent in-migrants living in extreme poverty and beyond current infrastructure networks. The project will provide vital lessons for subsequent wider investigation by this or other research groups.Within the peri-urban context, the project will explore major barriers to better energy access and identify strategies and pathways which can enable such marginal women, men and youth to move from overwhelming dependence on biomass to more sustainable energy solutions such as solar power or biogas. Since high biomass usage is currently as much a transport as an energy issue in these locations, transport is an important interlinked element in the research schema.In particular, we will focus on the gendered mediations of social connections, obligations and trust relations that, we hypothesise, are central to current energy relations and the development of future energy relations. This opens an avenue to explore the role of business as a development agent, in the light of the institutions and practices of adaptive innovation mobilised by the poor in circumstances of displacement and precarity.In doing so, the project will challenge a core assumption of many sustainable energy projects - that the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 on Energy for All will be met

This research examines the energy practices of very poor women, men and young people living in informal settlements in peri-urban situations in Nigeria, South Sudan, Nepal and Bangladesh and how these are changing, drawing comparative lessons across the study countries. It challenges conventional approaches to energy transition research. Lack of access to clean energy limits economic development, stifles people's life chances and traps millions into extreme poverty. Sustainable Development Goal 7 makes bringing access to affordable, clean and reliable energy for the poor a necessary element in transforming the development prospects for the 1.4 million people currently without modern energy services. However, while considerable development activity is being devoted to bringing new technological products from renewable energy research centre laboratory benches into the affordable reach of the energy-poor, current approaches to energy transition are deficient, not least because they fail to take into account the specific contexts and needs of the poorest and most marginal groups in low income countries: the women, men and youth on whom we focus in this project.The study will explore the energy practices of those who have experienced displacement as a result of environmental precarity (disasters or climate change), or political conflict, and are living in peri-urban locations but unconnected to the electricity grid. They offer a prime example of vulnerable groups whose energy requirements continue to be (poorly) met by biomass: the implications are substantial and extend beyond energy to transport (since high biomass usage can put a massive transport burden on women and children through head-loading of firewood/charcoal) and to other sectors, e.g. food, water, health. The study's novel purpose is to understand the range of means by which the poor access energy for light, heat and cooking fuel, and how this may have changed over time. While it is likely there

02/01/18