Abstract
Energy poverty is widely understood to be a complex and multi-faceted problem, with a range of drivers. In this paper we draw on secondary qualitative data on energy poverty from the UK, as well as conceptual thinking informed by the capabilities approach, to explore a previously understudied facet of energy poverty: social relations. We focus particularly on how relationships with family, friends, agencies and distant others impact on people’s ability to cope with energy poverty. We find that the connection between social relations and energy poverty is recursive: good social relations can both enable access to energy services, and be a product of such access. This connection is also shaped by structural factors, such as access to a range of resources, membership of particular collectivities, the need to perform social roles, and the common reasons used to explain poverty and energy use. Our work suggests that attempts to address energy poverty need to take into account the quality of people’s social relations, as well as the potential impact of policy and practice on social relations, given that people rely on their friends and families for information support and advice, on key agency workers for access to resources, and are also constrained by discourses of poverty.
Highlights
Energy poverty1 is widely understood to mean the inability of households to access adequate energy services, including home heating, electrical appliance use and mobility [1]
3 Smith and Seward break down social relations into ‘collective action, institutions and social capital’ which, we argue, is less useful than the categories we distilled from Nussbaum and Sen above: the capability to make relationships, the capability to have dignity, and the capability to participate in society
If we analyse Marina’s story through our theoretical lens, we find that her capability to access social relations and her capability to participate in society clearly impacted on her ability to access to energy services
Summary
Energy poverty is widely understood to mean the inability of households to access adequate energy services, including home heating, electrical appliance use and mobility [1]. Sampling from a large number of secondary qualitative interviews (197), gathered by multiple primary researchers between 2003 and 2016, we explain how people’s social relations capabilities impact on their capability to access energy services, and vice versa. We draw on a capabilities approach for a number of reasons This allows us to build on existing work which has found energy poverty to be complex and multi-faceted. It is common to turn to such a deficit-based account, highlighting older people, people with disabilities and small children as ‘vulnerable’, for instance [34] This fails to capture the complexity and multi-faceted nature of the experience of energy poverty. We show social relations (albeit not labelled as such) to be a central interest in the capabilities approach, allowing us to build a conceptual framework based on concepts that are congruent. This last point is where we start this section, by elaborating social relations through a capability approach
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