Since 2010, solar energy companies in North America and Europe have played a pivotal role in deli... more Since 2010, solar energy companies in North America and Europe have played a pivotal role in delivering clean, reliable and sustainable electricity to millions of people living off the grid across sub-Saharan Africa. However, today, off-grid solar energy in Africa is no longer seen as an unmitigated social and economic good. Inflows of private equity investment have led the employees and customers of off-grid solar companies to question the industry's commercial dynamics. Their critiques address the mis-selling of solar home systems and the technical limits of off-grid infrastructures for domestic production, framed both by dominant market paradigms and by relationships to nation, community and family. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in East Africa's off-grid solar industry, this study assembles these critical perspectives into a wider analysis of off-grid solar power as an adverse 'infrastructure of inclusion'.
How are we to engage with the forms of solarity that emerge in response to humanitarian crises, l... more How are we to engage with the forms of solarity that emerge in response to humanitarian crises, like those created by a highly virulent infectious disease? As we struggle to respond to the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and begin to envisage the role of solar energy in a green recovery, this article draws on long term ethnographic research in the global off grid solar industry to lay the grounds for an anthropology of humanitarianism and solar power. For over half a century, white engineers and entrepreneurs in the Global North have presented solar photovoltaics as a harbinger of radical change for distant others across the Global South. Tracking the interventions of one solar company in the West African Ebola crisis and reflecting on the industry’s response to COVID-19, this paper explores the politics, ethics, and possibility of solarity in the context of these historic relations of power.
Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international ... more Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international efforts to find market-based solutions to the delivery of basic energy services in humanitarian contexts. This article follows energy researchers, humanitarian practitioners and entrepreneurs as they work to capture a market for energy here by mapping consumer demand, generating evidence that can prove the willingness of refugees to pay and securing contracts for the supply of solar powered technologies. Their efforts reveal the moral and material logics of humanitarian interventions in the field of energy, and point to the continued significance of 'crisis' for the making of Africa's energy politics, subjects and futures.
The introduction to this special issue begins by surveying the significance of what we call Afric... more The introduction to this special issue begins by surveying the significance of what we call Africa’s internal energy frontiers for understanding a global energy realignment marked by experiments in renewable technologies as well as revanchist investments in fossil fuels. It then discusses capture as a concept rooted in both Marxist informed accounts of global energy regimes as well as the political histories and practices of African populations. Finally, it discusses the articles as spanning three economies of capture along Africa’s energy frontier: resurgent extractivism, post-carbon development and consumer renewables.
Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potenti... more Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potential defence against contracting Covid-19. In the early months of the pandemic studies of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus is transmitted less efficiently in higher temperatures or at higher rates of humidity, leading to encouraging newspaper headlines around the world, from London to Jakarta....
Current is a social and political thing; its presence or absence is never just about electric pow... more Current is a social and political thing; its presence or absence is never just about electric power or a connection to the grid but also about rights and entitlements, about political recognition and connections to the state. As anthropologists respond to changing social and economic demands for electricity infrastructures across the rural world, 'current thinking' offers new purchase on questions of citizenship and justice. This chapter opens up the material politics of electricity off the grid by exploring the salience of 'current' in rural India.
What might persuade you that anthropology should discard the distinction between life and non-lif... more What might persuade you that anthropology should discard the distinction between life and non-life if not carbon?
Contribution to Somatosphere Forum organized around the following motion: “Lacking empirical traction and heuristic power, the distinction between life and nonlife is one that anthropology needs to discard.”
This introduction to the Anthropology for Sale special issue makes a case for renewed attention t... more This introduction to the Anthropology for Sale special issue makes a case for renewed attention to the selling and salescraft in anthropology. Rather than presume to know in advance what kinds of ethics and interests underpin the moment of sale the contributors to this Special Issue ask how sales work allows people to perform themselves as moral actors. In this introduction we situate the moment of sale as a moment of possibility charged with play, charisma, spin and seduction, reflect on the language and rhetoric of selling, consider the presence of kinship, gender, class, caste in the marketplace, and emphasise the precariousness of selling in contexts of global economic uncertainty.
How do you sell a solar powered lamp to India's un-electrified, rural poor? This contribution to ... more How do you sell a solar powered lamp to India's un-electrified, rural poor? This contribution to Anthropology for Sale explores the work of direct selling in rural India, reflecting on the forms of prejudice, difference and exclusion that are produced as multinational companies create markets for consumer goods in places of chronic global poverty. In the highlands of Orissa, India, a US company sells solar powered lights through a network of young male sales agents. The company and its products express empathy and proximity, attachment and connection to India's indigenous and low caste communities. Yet the company's salesmen are often more concerned with maintaining forms of structural advantage and their sales practices articulate social differences based on caste, class and gender. Rather than see prejudice as a peripheral effect of expansion and growth in emerging markets this paper proposes that we see it as a constitutive feature of markets at the 'bottom of the pyramid'. KEYWORDS Youth; caste; social enterprise; solar energy; bottom of the pyramid Just Sell! 'So much tension. Heavy tension.' Aseem paced around the hotel room in his string vest and shorts. It was half past nine in the morning. He had been awake for three hours, making calls to his salesmen on a mobile phone. He dialled number after number. Occasionally he got an answer. More often he got a 'busy' or 'no signal' tone. Aseem sat down on the bed and sighed heavily. He had arrived in this small market town, the administrative capital of Koraput district in the highlands of southern Odisha, India, two days previously and it was already time to leave again. His train was leaving at noon. On the mattress beside him was a half-packed travel bag and a briefcase. He was
One neglected socio-cultural and political dimension to the rapid diffusion of solar power in Sub... more One neglected socio-cultural and political dimension to the rapid diffusion of solar power in Sub-Saharan Africa is the question of what happens when things fall apart. Investors in the small-scale renewable energy sector are increasingly concerned with the status of broken or non-functioning products and there is an emerging consensus around the need for centralised recycling systems as the solution to future flows of ‘solar waste’.
But what does the afterlife of off-grid solar products look like from below? Grounded in anthropology, geography and economic sociology, this paper tracks the impact of off grid solar products through contexts of breakdown, repair, and disposal. Combining stakeholder interviews, a longitudinal survey of product failure rates in Kenya and ethnographic research at a repair workshop in the town of Bomet, we challenge narratives of energy transitions that fail to address the environmental consequences of mass consumption and present an alternative approach to solar waste embedded in cultures and economies of repair
This issue of Limn examines the recent profusion of micro-technologies in the worlds of humanitar... more This issue of Limn examines the recent profusion of micro-technologies in the worlds of humanitarianism and development, some focused on fostering forms of social improvement, others claiming to alleviate suffering, and many seeking to accomplish both. From water meters, micro-insurance and cash transfers, to solar lanterns, water filtration systems, and sanitation devices, examples proliferate across the early 21st century landscapes of international aid. Although small-scale endeavors are far from novel, today these devices are animated by different intellectual and moral energy, drawing on novel financial and organizational resources. Many blur distinctions between public and private interests, along with divisions between obligations, gifts and commodities. At the same time, they entail novel configurations of expertise, political obligation and forms of care. The articles in this issue explore these new convergences of developmental and humanitarian projects, alongside reworked relationships between experts, governments, and purported beneficiaries, focused on fostering “participation” and “partnerships” rather than nation-building.
’The digital’ is becoming as much a part of our renewable energy infrastructures as water, wind a... more ’The digital’ is becoming as much a part of our renewable energy infrastructures as water, wind and sunlight, electromagnetic fields and electrons, metal and plastic, wood and wire, light and heat, policy and legislation, technical models and economic theories, fantasies of autonomy and resilience, order and control. The refitting of a hydroelectricity system in rural Scotland offers a novel entry point for probing the ontology of the digital and what we might call 'the renewable human'.
In electronics the word current is used to describe the flow of electricity or the movement of el... more In electronics the word current is used to describe the flow of electricity or the movement of electrically charged particles around a circuit. Across much of India current is a vernacular keyword for talking about the flow or movement of electricity from networks of pylons and wires into everyday life.
Since 2010, solar energy companies in North America and Europe have played a pivotal role in deli... more Since 2010, solar energy companies in North America and Europe have played a pivotal role in delivering clean, reliable and sustainable electricity to millions of people living off the grid across sub-Saharan Africa. However, today, off-grid solar energy in Africa is no longer seen as an unmitigated social and economic good. Inflows of private equity investment have led the employees and customers of off-grid solar companies to question the industry's commercial dynamics. Their critiques address the mis-selling of solar home systems and the technical limits of off-grid infrastructures for domestic production, framed both by dominant market paradigms and by relationships to nation, community and family. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in East Africa's off-grid solar industry, this study assembles these critical perspectives into a wider analysis of off-grid solar power as an adverse 'infrastructure of inclusion'.
How are we to engage with the forms of solarity that emerge in response to humanitarian crises, l... more How are we to engage with the forms of solarity that emerge in response to humanitarian crises, like those created by a highly virulent infectious disease? As we struggle to respond to the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and begin to envisage the role of solar energy in a green recovery, this article draws on long term ethnographic research in the global off grid solar industry to lay the grounds for an anthropology of humanitarianism and solar power. For over half a century, white engineers and entrepreneurs in the Global North have presented solar photovoltaics as a harbinger of radical change for distant others across the Global South. Tracking the interventions of one solar company in the West African Ebola crisis and reflecting on the industry’s response to COVID-19, this paper explores the politics, ethics, and possibility of solarity in the context of these historic relations of power.
Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international ... more Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international efforts to find market-based solutions to the delivery of basic energy services in humanitarian contexts. This article follows energy researchers, humanitarian practitioners and entrepreneurs as they work to capture a market for energy here by mapping consumer demand, generating evidence that can prove the willingness of refugees to pay and securing contracts for the supply of solar powered technologies. Their efforts reveal the moral and material logics of humanitarian interventions in the field of energy, and point to the continued significance of 'crisis' for the making of Africa's energy politics, subjects and futures.
The introduction to this special issue begins by surveying the significance of what we call Afric... more The introduction to this special issue begins by surveying the significance of what we call Africa’s internal energy frontiers for understanding a global energy realignment marked by experiments in renewable technologies as well as revanchist investments in fossil fuels. It then discusses capture as a concept rooted in both Marxist informed accounts of global energy regimes as well as the political histories and practices of African populations. Finally, it discusses the articles as spanning three economies of capture along Africa’s energy frontier: resurgent extractivism, post-carbon development and consumer renewables.
Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potenti... more Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potential defence against contracting Covid-19. In the early months of the pandemic studies of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus is transmitted less efficiently in higher temperatures or at higher rates of humidity, leading to encouraging newspaper headlines around the world, from London to Jakarta....
Current is a social and political thing; its presence or absence is never just about electric pow... more Current is a social and political thing; its presence or absence is never just about electric power or a connection to the grid but also about rights and entitlements, about political recognition and connections to the state. As anthropologists respond to changing social and economic demands for electricity infrastructures across the rural world, 'current thinking' offers new purchase on questions of citizenship and justice. This chapter opens up the material politics of electricity off the grid by exploring the salience of 'current' in rural India.
What might persuade you that anthropology should discard the distinction between life and non-lif... more What might persuade you that anthropology should discard the distinction between life and non-life if not carbon?
Contribution to Somatosphere Forum organized around the following motion: “Lacking empirical traction and heuristic power, the distinction between life and nonlife is one that anthropology needs to discard.”
This introduction to the Anthropology for Sale special issue makes a case for renewed attention t... more This introduction to the Anthropology for Sale special issue makes a case for renewed attention to the selling and salescraft in anthropology. Rather than presume to know in advance what kinds of ethics and interests underpin the moment of sale the contributors to this Special Issue ask how sales work allows people to perform themselves as moral actors. In this introduction we situate the moment of sale as a moment of possibility charged with play, charisma, spin and seduction, reflect on the language and rhetoric of selling, consider the presence of kinship, gender, class, caste in the marketplace, and emphasise the precariousness of selling in contexts of global economic uncertainty.
How do you sell a solar powered lamp to India's un-electrified, rural poor? This contribution to ... more How do you sell a solar powered lamp to India's un-electrified, rural poor? This contribution to Anthropology for Sale explores the work of direct selling in rural India, reflecting on the forms of prejudice, difference and exclusion that are produced as multinational companies create markets for consumer goods in places of chronic global poverty. In the highlands of Orissa, India, a US company sells solar powered lights through a network of young male sales agents. The company and its products express empathy and proximity, attachment and connection to India's indigenous and low caste communities. Yet the company's salesmen are often more concerned with maintaining forms of structural advantage and their sales practices articulate social differences based on caste, class and gender. Rather than see prejudice as a peripheral effect of expansion and growth in emerging markets this paper proposes that we see it as a constitutive feature of markets at the 'bottom of the pyramid'. KEYWORDS Youth; caste; social enterprise; solar energy; bottom of the pyramid Just Sell! 'So much tension. Heavy tension.' Aseem paced around the hotel room in his string vest and shorts. It was half past nine in the morning. He had been awake for three hours, making calls to his salesmen on a mobile phone. He dialled number after number. Occasionally he got an answer. More often he got a 'busy' or 'no signal' tone. Aseem sat down on the bed and sighed heavily. He had arrived in this small market town, the administrative capital of Koraput district in the highlands of southern Odisha, India, two days previously and it was already time to leave again. His train was leaving at noon. On the mattress beside him was a half-packed travel bag and a briefcase. He was
One neglected socio-cultural and political dimension to the rapid diffusion of solar power in Sub... more One neglected socio-cultural and political dimension to the rapid diffusion of solar power in Sub-Saharan Africa is the question of what happens when things fall apart. Investors in the small-scale renewable energy sector are increasingly concerned with the status of broken or non-functioning products and there is an emerging consensus around the need for centralised recycling systems as the solution to future flows of ‘solar waste’.
But what does the afterlife of off-grid solar products look like from below? Grounded in anthropology, geography and economic sociology, this paper tracks the impact of off grid solar products through contexts of breakdown, repair, and disposal. Combining stakeholder interviews, a longitudinal survey of product failure rates in Kenya and ethnographic research at a repair workshop in the town of Bomet, we challenge narratives of energy transitions that fail to address the environmental consequences of mass consumption and present an alternative approach to solar waste embedded in cultures and economies of repair
This issue of Limn examines the recent profusion of micro-technologies in the worlds of humanitar... more This issue of Limn examines the recent profusion of micro-technologies in the worlds of humanitarianism and development, some focused on fostering forms of social improvement, others claiming to alleviate suffering, and many seeking to accomplish both. From water meters, micro-insurance and cash transfers, to solar lanterns, water filtration systems, and sanitation devices, examples proliferate across the early 21st century landscapes of international aid. Although small-scale endeavors are far from novel, today these devices are animated by different intellectual and moral energy, drawing on novel financial and organizational resources. Many blur distinctions between public and private interests, along with divisions between obligations, gifts and commodities. At the same time, they entail novel configurations of expertise, political obligation and forms of care. The articles in this issue explore these new convergences of developmental and humanitarian projects, alongside reworked relationships between experts, governments, and purported beneficiaries, focused on fostering “participation” and “partnerships” rather than nation-building.
’The digital’ is becoming as much a part of our renewable energy infrastructures as water, wind a... more ’The digital’ is becoming as much a part of our renewable energy infrastructures as water, wind and sunlight, electromagnetic fields and electrons, metal and plastic, wood and wire, light and heat, policy and legislation, technical models and economic theories, fantasies of autonomy and resilience, order and control. The refitting of a hydroelectricity system in rural Scotland offers a novel entry point for probing the ontology of the digital and what we might call 'the renewable human'.
In electronics the word current is used to describe the flow of electricity or the movement of el... more In electronics the word current is used to describe the flow of electricity or the movement of electrically charged particles around a circuit. Across much of India current is a vernacular keyword for talking about the flow or movement of electricity from networks of pylons and wires into everyday life.
Corporate gifts – from philanthropic donations to individual reward schemes – attract considerabl... more Corporate gifts – from philanthropic donations to individual reward schemes – attract considerable attention from scholars for the kinds of moral, economic and political logics that motivate them. This article considers the gifts that transnational corporations give to producers and draws from Marilyn Strathern’s writings on exchange and personhood in order to reverse dominant analyses. Focused on the gifting of gold coins to industrial workers at a global manufacturing unit in India, it brings together field-based observations with a diverse field of literature on the gift in anthropology. Against an analysis that sees the corporate gift harnessed directly to a corporate bottom line, this article proposes an alternative accounting that uses Strathern’s notions of ‘elicitation’, ‘revelation’ and ‘detachment’ to explore the contours of knowledge, personhood and relationality in the transaction. If corporate gifts have powerful effects, the article argues, it is because they establish difference between the person of the giver and the person of the recipient and because they materialize actions, desires and capacities that accrue to and transform the recipients rather than simply because they are vessels for the interests of global capital. As social theory confronts the political economy of corporate giving, Strathern’s writings prompt provocative questions about agency and power that challenge the hegemonic status of the modern corporation.
Written for The Guardian's "Global Development Professionals Network" to launch a new series on E... more Written for The Guardian's "Global Development Professionals Network" to launch a new series on Energy Access. Full article available here: http://gu.com/p/499bb/sbl
We often think of patriotism and nationalism as abstract concepts, imagined connections, historie... more We often think of patriotism and nationalism as abstract concepts, imagined connections, histories inculcated through stories, printed newspapers and novels, museums. All these require literate, mature audiences and creators, and analyses tend to be confined to adults. But as Véronique Benei shows so persuasively in her careful yet powerful book, Schooling passions, patriotism and nationalism are first encountered and embodied in the 'sensorium'(Walter Benjamin's notion) of the very youngest pupils in school.
Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos, by Arthur Joyce, is the latest in Wiley-Blackwell's 'Peoples of ... more Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos, by Arthur Joyce, is the latest in Wiley-Blackwell's 'Peoples of the Americas Series', which presents summaries of important New World culture areas. In this volume, Joyce provides the most comprehensive review currently available of the archaeological record of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. For decades, Oaxaca has been a highly productive crucible for forging archaeological understandings of the development of Mesoamerican societies.
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Contribution to Somatosphere Forum organized around the following motion: “Lacking empirical traction and heuristic power, the distinction between life and nonlife is one that anthropology needs to discard.”
But what does the afterlife of off-grid solar products look like from below? Grounded in anthropology, geography and economic sociology, this paper tracks the impact of off grid solar products through contexts of breakdown, repair, and disposal. Combining stakeholder interviews, a longitudinal survey of product failure rates in Kenya and ethnographic research at a repair workshop in the town of Bomet, we challenge narratives of energy transitions that fail to address the environmental consequences of mass consumption and present an alternative approach to solar waste embedded in cultures and economies of repair
Contribution to Somatosphere Forum organized around the following motion: “Lacking empirical traction and heuristic power, the distinction between life and nonlife is one that anthropology needs to discard.”
But what does the afterlife of off-grid solar products look like from below? Grounded in anthropology, geography and economic sociology, this paper tracks the impact of off grid solar products through contexts of breakdown, repair, and disposal. Combining stakeholder interviews, a longitudinal survey of product failure rates in Kenya and ethnographic research at a repair workshop in the town of Bomet, we challenge narratives of energy transitions that fail to address the environmental consequences of mass consumption and present an alternative approach to solar waste embedded in cultures and economies of repair