Abstract
This article uses energy poverty and social suffering phenomena to show the inadequacy of utilitarian policy-making that puts primary focus on resource generation and availability as a means of socio-economic development. This approach fails to acknowledge that energy generation can go-hand-in-hand with energy poverty and social suffering. Drawing on empirical qualitative research in Zimbabwe, the article shows how a lack of social and political-economic capabilities contributes to energy poverty, which consequently leads to social suffering. The article draws on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and then extends the argument through a Foucauldian analysis of power...