Beyond utilitarian economics : a capability approach to energy poverty and social suffering
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Capability approach , Social suffering , Energy poverty
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/481760 , uj:43663 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2021. Beyond utilitarian economics : a capability approach to energy poverty and social suffering.
- Description: 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...
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Capability approach , Social suffering , Energy poverty
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/481760 , uj:43663 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2021. Beyond utilitarian economics : a capability approach to energy poverty and social suffering.
- Description: 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...
- Full Text:
Constructing, understanding and interpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a postmodern perspective
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Energy poverty , Discourse , Narrative
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/477073 , uj:43092 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2021. Constructing, understanding and interpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a postmodern perspective.
- Description: Abstract: Energy poverty is well acknowledged in the global public and scholarly discussions. Nonetheless, it is habitually analysed in isolation from the discourse through which it is framed, produced, represented and known. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, inductive qualitative research reveals that there is one main discourse associated with energy poverty: net deficit (supply-demand mismatch). This discourse is expressed by narratives that have competed for dominance in the Zimbabwean energy sector (2012-present), in particular, the effect of changes in the climate, vandalism of electricity infrastructure, the impact of sanctions, and the low rate of renewable energy adoption, are analysed...
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Energy poverty , Discourse , Narrative
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/477073 , uj:43092 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2021. Constructing, understanding and interpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a postmodern perspective.
- Description: Abstract: Energy poverty is well acknowledged in the global public and scholarly discussions. Nonetheless, it is habitually analysed in isolation from the discourse through which it is framed, produced, represented and known. Using Zimbabwe as a case study, inductive qualitative research reveals that there is one main discourse associated with energy poverty: net deficit (supply-demand mismatch). This discourse is expressed by narratives that have competed for dominance in the Zimbabwean energy sector (2012-present), in particular, the effect of changes in the climate, vandalism of electricity infrastructure, the impact of sanctions, and the low rate of renewable energy adoption, are analysed...
- Full Text:
Reinterpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a scalar perspective
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Scale , Energy access , Relational processes
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/282983 , uj:30505 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2018. Reinterpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a scalar perspective.
- Description: Abstract: Unequal access to electricity has negatively impacted rural households in Zimbabwe. Energy poverty and its impact cannot be understood only at rural household level, but involve the local community, the government, the nature of the state and international relations. The state, non-state and political actors operate across scales and have relational interactions that help to explain inequality in access to energy. Through a qualitative study of Buhera District, Ward 24 and its scalar political ecology, I explain inequalities of access through actor roles and differential power, also finding that patriarchal gender relations play a critical role in socially producing scale in the household. Scalar relations determine policy decisions that are felt by households denied access to electricity.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Scale , Energy access , Relational processes
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/282983 , uj:30505 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2018. Reinterpreting energy poverty in Zimbabwe : a scalar perspective.
- Description: Abstract: Unequal access to electricity has negatively impacted rural households in Zimbabwe. Energy poverty and its impact cannot be understood only at rural household level, but involve the local community, the government, the nature of the state and international relations. The state, non-state and political actors operate across scales and have relational interactions that help to explain inequality in access to energy. Through a qualitative study of Buhera District, Ward 24 and its scalar political ecology, I explain inequalities of access through actor roles and differential power, also finding that patriarchal gender relations play a critical role in socially producing scale in the household. Scalar relations determine policy decisions that are felt by households denied access to electricity.
- Full Text:
Retheorising the relationship between electricity scarcity and social injustice: evidence from Zimbabwe
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Social scarcity , Neoliberalism , Poverty
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/409886 , uj:34356 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2020: Retheorising the relationship between electricity scarcity and social injustice: evidence from Zimbabwe.
- Description: Abstract: Despite the pervasive social scarcity of electricity in Zimbabwe, there is little understanding of this phenomenon, especially how it abrogates social justice. With a view to debunking the natural inevitability of electricity scarcity, the article argues that in an energy sector driven by neoliberal tendencies, capital accumulation is not challenged. Hence electricity scarcity is erroneously considered inevitable. Drawing on qualitative research, the fundamental argument advanced in this article is that structural factors such as the market trends produce and reproduce electricity social scarcity, which in turn perpetuates social injustice because electricity is a sine qua non of human development. Coincidentally, this work also reveals that neoliberalism is not only an ideological rhetoric embedded in political-economic reality, but rather its discourse produces prudent subjects who are loyal to it and prepared to endure the effects of energy poverty. Accordingly, the article raises some critical challenges for policy-makers as it has both political- economic and social justice implications, insisting that electricity availability does not mean access to all- scarcity can be experienced even when the resource is in abundance.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Social scarcity , Neoliberalism , Poverty
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/409886 , uj:34356 , Citation: Chipango, E.F. 2020: Retheorising the relationship between electricity scarcity and social injustice: evidence from Zimbabwe.
- Description: Abstract: Despite the pervasive social scarcity of electricity in Zimbabwe, there is little understanding of this phenomenon, especially how it abrogates social justice. With a view to debunking the natural inevitability of electricity scarcity, the article argues that in an energy sector driven by neoliberal tendencies, capital accumulation is not challenged. Hence electricity scarcity is erroneously considered inevitable. Drawing on qualitative research, the fundamental argument advanced in this article is that structural factors such as the market trends produce and reproduce electricity social scarcity, which in turn perpetuates social injustice because electricity is a sine qua non of human development. Coincidentally, this work also reveals that neoliberalism is not only an ideological rhetoric embedded in political-economic reality, but rather its discourse produces prudent subjects who are loyal to it and prepared to endure the effects of energy poverty. Accordingly, the article raises some critical challenges for policy-makers as it has both political- economic and social justice implications, insisting that electricity availability does not mean access to all- scarcity can be experienced even when the resource is in abundance.
- Full Text:
The rural electrification-ecological sustainability nexus in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Rural electrification - Political aspects - Zimbabwe , Power (Social science) - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/278975 , uj:29947
- Description: Abstract: This political ecology driven study considers the accusation of rural people as ecological disrupters in the face of energy poverty as flawed and misinformed. What is not appreciated is that energy poverty is not a natural phenomenon. The contribution of this study lies in locating the effect of power relations on the rural electrification processes (where power presents itself in the form of neoliberalism). By the same token, the effect of power is located in the ecological sustainability perspective where power presents itself in the form of environmentality and the formation of “environmental subjects.” Furthermore, it would seem imperative discourse epistemologies pertaining to energy poverty should be understood first in order to reveal how flawed or inadequate the rules and regulations in use are. In addition, the study contends that energy poverty can be best understood in a relational scale context through the engagement of various actors and actants. Energy poverty interacts with various political-economic factors and as such cannot be viewed as an independent phenomenon. In that light, it is argued that energy poverty cannot be understood within the parameters of technical disciplines such as engineering only. Rather social sciences are critical in addressing the notions of equitable access. Social injustice in the electricity sector comes in various forms and focusing on one (technical) aspect at the expense of others misses the connections between them. More often than not, the technical approach fails to allow active participation of the rural poor in negotiating for electricity access. Thus, the technical approach considers energy poverty as natural and inevitable. Using Buhera, Ward 24 and the Zingondi Resettlement Area as case study areas, a total of 103 interviews were conducted. In Buhera (Ward 24), interviews were , D.Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)
- Full Text:
- Authors: Chipango, Ellen Fungisai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Rural electrification - Political aspects - Zimbabwe , Power (Social science) - Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/278975 , uj:29947
- Description: Abstract: This political ecology driven study considers the accusation of rural people as ecological disrupters in the face of energy poverty as flawed and misinformed. What is not appreciated is that energy poverty is not a natural phenomenon. The contribution of this study lies in locating the effect of power relations on the rural electrification processes (where power presents itself in the form of neoliberalism). By the same token, the effect of power is located in the ecological sustainability perspective where power presents itself in the form of environmentality and the formation of “environmental subjects.” Furthermore, it would seem imperative discourse epistemologies pertaining to energy poverty should be understood first in order to reveal how flawed or inadequate the rules and regulations in use are. In addition, the study contends that energy poverty can be best understood in a relational scale context through the engagement of various actors and actants. Energy poverty interacts with various political-economic factors and as such cannot be viewed as an independent phenomenon. In that light, it is argued that energy poverty cannot be understood within the parameters of technical disciplines such as engineering only. Rather social sciences are critical in addressing the notions of equitable access. Social injustice in the electricity sector comes in various forms and focusing on one (technical) aspect at the expense of others misses the connections between them. More often than not, the technical approach fails to allow active participation of the rural poor in negotiating for electricity access. Thus, the technical approach considers energy poverty as natural and inevitable. Using Buhera, Ward 24 and the Zingondi Resettlement Area as case study areas, a total of 103 interviews were conducted. In Buhera (Ward 24), interviews were , D.Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)
- Full Text:
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »