IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v53y2021i5p1031-1050.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The materiality of precarity: Gender, race and energy infrastructure in urban South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Jon Phillips

    (University of Cambridge, UK)

  • Saska Petrova

Abstract

Analysis of precarity has offered a critique of labour market experiences and politically induced conditions of work, housing, migration, or essential services. This paper develops an infrastructural politics of precarity by analysing energy as a critical sphere of social and ecological reproduction. We employ precarity to understand how gendered and racialised vulnerability to energy deprivation is induced through political processes. In turn, analysis of energy illustrates socio-material processes of precarity, produced and contested through infrastructure. Our argument is developed through scalar analysis of energy precarity in urban South Africa, a country that complicates a North-South framing of debates on both precarity and energy. We demonstrate how energy precarity can be reproduced or destabilised through: social and material relations of housing, tenure, labour and infrastructure; the formation of gendered and racialized energy subjects; and resistance and everyday practices. We conclude that analysis of infrastructure provides insights on how precarity is contested as a shared condition and on the prospect of systemic change through struggles over distribution and production.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:1031-1050
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20986807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X20986807
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X20986807?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meagher, Kate, 2019. "Working in chains: African informal workers and global value chains," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91590, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Ronaldo Munck, 2013. "The Precariat: a view from the South," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(5), pages 747-762.
    3. Jasmine Arpagian & Stuart C. Aitken, 2018. "Without Space: The Politics of Precarity and Dispossession in Postsocialist Bucharest," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 108(2), pages 445-453, March.
    4. Matinga, Margaret Njirambo & Annegarn, Harold J., 2013. "Paradoxical impacts of electricity on life in a rural South African village," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 295-302.
    5. Louise Waite & Hannah Lewis, 2017. "Precarious Irregular Migrants and Their Sharing Economies: A Spectrum of Transactional Laboring Experiences," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(4), pages 964-978, July.
    6. 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.
    7. Peter Alexander, 2010. "Rebellion of the poor: South Africa's service delivery protests -- a preliminary analysis," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(123), pages 25-40, March.
    8. Roger Southall, 2007. "Ten Propositions about Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(111), pages 67-84, March.
    9. Tanja Winther & Margaret N. Matinga & Kirsten Ulsrud & Karina Standal, 2017. "Women’s empowerment through electricity access: scoping study and proposal for a framework of analysis," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 389-417, July.
    10. Lucy Baker & Peter Newell & Jon Phillips, 2014. "The Political Economy of Energy Transitions: The Case of South Africa," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(6), pages 791-818, December.
    11. Stefan Bouzarovski & Harriet Thomson, 2018. "Energy Vulnerability in the Grain of the City: Toward Neighborhood Typologies of Material Deprivation," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 108(3), pages 695-717, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tarasova, Ekaterina & Rohracher, Harald, 2023. "Marginalising household users in smart grids," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Ngarava, Saul & Zhou, Leocadia & Ningi, Thulani & Chari, Martin M. & Mdiya, Lwandiso, 2022. "Gender and ethnic disparities in energy poverty: The case of South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    3. Alda-Vidal, Cecilia & Khalid, Rihab & Foulds, Chris & Royston, Sarah & Greene, Mary, 2023. "Gender imaginaries in energy transitions: How professionals construct and envision gender equity in energy access in the Global South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    4. Koomson, Isaac & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa, 2022. "Employment precarity and energy poverty in post-apartheid South Africa: Exploring the racial and ethnic dimensions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    5. Shivant Jhagroe, 2024. "Fences, seeds and bees: The more-than-human politics of community gardening in Rotterdam," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(8), pages 1488-1507, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. David Ockwell & Robert Byrne & Joanes Atela & Victoria Chengo & Elsie Onsongo & Jacob Fodio Todd & Victoria Kasprowicz & Adrian Ely, 2021. "Transforming Access to Clean Energy Technologies in the Global South: Learning from Lighting Africa in Kenya," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-24, July.
    4. Antonella Mazzone, 2022. "Gender and Energy in International Development: Is There a Return of the ‘Feminization’ of Poverty Discourse?," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 65(1), pages 17-28, March.
    5. Elisa Pascucci, 2019. "The local labour building the international community: Precarious work within humanitarian spaces," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(3), pages 743-760, May.
    6. Natalia Flores Garrido, 2020. "Precarity From a Feminist Perspective: A Note on Three Elements for the Political Struggle," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 582-590, September.
    7. Joshua Greenstein, 2020. "The Precariat Class Structure and Income Inequality among US Workers: 1980–2018," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 447-469, September.
    8. Hermanus Stephanus Geyer Jr, 2023. "Precarious and non-precarious work in the informal sector: Evidence from South Africa," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(10), pages 1915-1931, August.
    9. Joseph Choonara, 2020. "The Precarious Concept of Precarity," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 427-446, September.
    10. Kirchhoff, Hannes & Strunz, Kai, 2019. "Key drivers for successful development of peer-to-peer microgrids for swarm electrification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(C), pages 46-62.
    11. Sedai, Ashish Kumar & Jamasb, Tooraj & Nepal, Rabindra & Miller, Ray, 2021. "Electrification and welfare for the marginalized: Evidence from India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    12. Katie J Wells & Kafui Attoh & Declan Cullen, 2021. "“Just-in-Place†labor: Driver organizing in the Uber workplace," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 315-331, March.
    13. Bruno Emmanuel Ongo Nkoa & Jacques Simon Song & Marie Laure Onguene Belomo, 2022. "Does ICT diffusion contribute to women's political empowerment in Africa?," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(3), pages 339-355, September.
    14. Alda-Vidal, Cecilia & Khalid, Rihab & Foulds, Chris & Royston, Sarah & Greene, Mary, 2023. "Gender imaginaries in energy transitions: How professionals construct and envision gender equity in energy access in the Global South," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    15. Lucy Baker, 2016. "Post-apartheid electricity policy and the emergence of South Africa's renewable energy sector," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-15, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Lipson, Matthew M. & Chard, Rose, 2019. "Temporality, vulnerability, and energy justice in household low carbon innovations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 495-504.
    17. Meron Tesfamichael & Edson Twinomujuni & Mbeo Ogeya & Silver Ssebagala & Yacob Mulugetta, 2022. "Barriers to the institutionalization of industrial energy efficiency in Africa: A case study from Uganda," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), May.
    18. Zoe Adams & Simon Deakin, 2014. "Institutional Solutions to Precariousness and Inequality in Labour Markets," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 779-809, December.
    19. Igawa, Moegi & Managi, Shunsuke, 2022. "Energy poverty and income inequality: An economic analysis of 37 countries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PB).
    20. Fronteddu, Antonio, 2023. "From extractivism to community resilience: the promise and perils of Sardinia's energy transition," Thesis Commons zxd95, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:1031-1050. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.