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A Historical Account of Bad Service Users
Topics: History of Geography
, Development
, Energy
Keywords: energy access, development discourse, historical geography, STS Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract Day: Monday Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) Room: Virtual 60
Authors:
Veronica Jacome, Temple University
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Abstract
Development regimes have long fostered (de)moralizing accounts of the global South, whereby people are both subjects of development schemes but also implicated in their environmental woes. In the case of contemporary electricity development, which mobilizes massive funds for tackling so-called bad electric networks, particularly in Africa, a common narrative is that failing systems are the fault of amoral people. By both scholars and policy-makers, users are often characterized as “corrupt,” “thieves,” and “non-payers,” whose behavior culminates in non-technical losses. This link between bad users and bad systems informs policy measures and technical interventions, but it has never been justified. This work asks, ``How have the concepts of the “bad” electricity user, “thief”, or “nonpayer” evolved over time and space? What does the history of the US grid reveal about assumptions that dominate the postcolonial grid? Using historical methods, this work leverages global energy dichotomies in order to move past oversimplified and oppressive accounts of built environments.