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Irregular Connections: Everyday Energy Politics in Catalonia

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  • James Angel

Abstract

While questions of energy and energy transition have become hotly contested, the abstract and fetishized conception of energy that dominates contemporary political debates occludes connections to everyday life. By tracing the activities of Catalan activist network Alianza contra la Pobreza Energética (Alliance against Energy Poverty or APE), this article seeks to excavate the political possibilities opened up by a more everyday energy politics. The article addresses the practice of illegal utilities connections among the urban poor of Catalonia, arguing that this constitutes a form of makeshift urbanism resonant of that conceptualized from within ‘Southern’ cities. These ‘irregular connections’ to urban infrastructure networks are then distinguished from the ‘irregular connections’ formed between people within the collectivized social infrastructure of APE. APE, I argue, translate ‘energy’ as social reproduction, framing their struggle for the right to energy around the right to sustain life with dignity. This, I suggest, is the starting point for a feminist praxis capable of creating new and unruly subjectivities, reconfiguring reproductive relations in more caring and collective directions, and ultimately challenging the violence of the commodity form.

Suggested Citation

  • James Angel, 2019. "Irregular Connections: Everyday Energy Politics in Catalonia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 337-353, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:43:y:2019:i:2:p:337-353
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12729
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    Cited by:

    1. Rachel Goffe & Nikki Luke, 2024. "What does capital consume? Racial capitalism and the social reproduction of surplus people," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1311-1319, June.
    2. Jon Phillips & Saska Petrova, 2021. "The materiality of precarity: Gender, race and energy infrastructure in urban South Africa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1031-1050, August.
    3. Abel, Dennis & Lieth, Jonas & Jünger, Stefan, 2024. "Mapping the spatial turn in social science energy research. A computational literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. Stefan Bouzarovski & Harriet Thomson & Marine Cornelis, 2021. "Confronting Energy Poverty in Europe: A Research and Policy Agenda," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-19, February.
    5. Gavin Bridge & Ludger Gailing, 2020. "New energy spaces: Towards a geographical political economy of energy transition," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1037-1050, September.
    6. Lise Desvallées, 2022. "Low-carbon retrofits in social housing: Energy efficiency, multidimensional energy poverty, and domestic comfort strategies in southern Europe [Social housing providers have a significant amount of," Post-Print hal-03456394, HAL.

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