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| 1 |
ID:
135865
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper deals with the strategies of households living in a peripheral high-mountain region in order to cope with the post-Soviet energy crisis. The Soviet modernization project failed at connecting the region to the grid, and imported coal for heating and fuel for producing electric energy at high costs over long distances. After the collapse of this alimentation system, people have substituted energy demands with wood and shrubs, and used increasingly available low-cost Chinese solar equipment to produce electrical energy. International development actors have failed to increase acceptance for energy efficiency technologies. Despite the Pamirs' high potential for solar and wind energy and decreasing installation costs, Soviet-style state planning of energy infrastructure still favours big hydropower stations, despite their high (social) costs and the limited potential on the Pamir plateau. The paper will discuss bottom-up effects of household decisions and top-down strategies as potentials and obstacles for a sustainable energy supply in the Pamirs.
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| 2 |
ID:
135862
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Twenty years after independence the labour market of western Kazakhstan is strongly oriented towards the resource-extraction industry. The oil sector offers job opportunities not only in mining and exploration but also in connected services such as transport, security and food supply, and maintenance services. Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in the region, I argue that the resource-extraction industry provides a blessing for the working population in terms of relatively high salaries; however, it represents a curse in terms of labour conditions. This article highlights, through the example of Aktobe province, workers’ attitudes towards and their agency within the oil sector that influences migration choices. The research suggests that money earned in the oil sector can work as a catalyst for migration and urbanization.
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| 3 |
ID:
135859
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In Afghanistan ethnic Hazaras are a group with a long history of marginalization, and even outright persecution, mainly because of their Shi'a Muslim faith. Only after the international intervention in 2001 have socio-economic opportunities started to open up for Hazaras. Hazaras, however, maintain a strong perception of still being considered second-class citizens, claiming to be overlooked by the Afghan government and allotted fewer funds by the international development community. This paper examines Hazara perceptions of marginality with reference to one issue: the lack of state-provided electricity in Bamyan province, which many consider the Hazara homeland. Anti-government protests in Bamyan often revolve around this particular issue, and the demand for electricity has become part of the permanent landscape, through a lantern sculpture in Bamyan's main square, as well as through the experience of living one's everyday life with a lack of easily available electric light. The lack of electricity becomes an embodied, daily reminder of perceived subordination to other religio-ethnic groups and the feeling of being left behind by the international community.
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| 4 |
ID:
135860
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| Summary/Abstract |
Prior to the 2010 overthrow of Kyrgyzstan's government, there were tangible signs of popular dissatisfaction with the ruling Bakiev regime. Beginning in spring 2008, electricity shortages and forced restrictions became a daily reminder of the government's ineptitude, corruption and regional vulnerability. This article reports the results of a survey and interviews conducted in 2009–10. The results reveal how popular perceptions of energy and water supply shaped the average Kyrgyzstani's frustration with the ruling regime in the year before the revolution. The paper explores how the Bakiev administration attempted to frame the electricity crisis in nationalistic and naturalized ways, and how this framing only partly resonated and created mismatch with daily lived experiences and widespread suspicions of corruption in the hydroenergy sector. Ultimately, this mismatched framing generated collective emotions of shame and blame, creating the context for revolution.
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| 5 |
ID:
135858
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| Summary/Abstract |
The perception of Central Asia and its place in the world has come to be shaped by its large oil and gas reserves. Literature on energy in the region has thus largely focused on related geopolitical issues and national policies. However, little is known about citizens’ needs within this broader context of commodities that connect the energy networks of China, Russia and the West. This multidisciplinary special issue brings together anthropologists, economists, geographers and political scientists to examine the role of all forms of energy (here: oil, gas, hydropower and solar power) and their products (especially electricity) in people's daily lives throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus. The papers in this issue ask how energy is understood as an everyday resource, as a necessity and a source of opportunity, a challenge or even as an indicator of exclusionary practices. We enquire into the role and views of energy sector workers, rural consumers and urban communities, and their experiences of energy companies’ and national policies. We further examine the legacy of Soviet and more recent domestic energy policies, the environmental of energy use as well as the political impact of citizens’ energy grievances.
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| 6 |
ID:
135863
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| Summary/Abstract |
Most residents of Baku, Azerbaijan, retain a positive view of the state restructuring of the gas distribution network and do not object to the principle of paying for gas at its ‘market price’. They are, however, very critical of the street-level officials (gazoviki) of the state-owned gas company, who often defraud residents in elaborate schemes. This article highlights the neighbourhood-level impacts of broad technological changes in the domestic gas distribution system, arguing that they have permitted new forms of exploitation by gazoviki. By examining the terms in which citizens have responded to such scams, it is possible to relate these commentaries to locally prevailing and culturally patterned understandings of moral economy and governance. Popular critiques both of malfeasance in the gas network and of wealth accumulation as a result of Azerbaijan's hydrocarbon boom are discursive attempts to restore a moral order that citizens increasingly worry has been abandoned.
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| 7 |
ID:
135861
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| Summary/Abstract |
The effective measurement of natural gas consumption has become a central component of energy sector development in resource-dependent post-Soviet states such as Armenia and Georgia. Yet, while policy assessments have often emphasized the significance of technology upgrades in increasing the efficiency of gas distribution in Central Eurasia, it is necessary to consider other types of exogenous political and economic influences upon sourcing and adoption of measuring devices by national industries and their resultant impact upon energy sector performance. This study presents empirical data collected in northern Armenia and Tbilisi, Georgia, as well as from secondary sources, in order to examine the effect of both domestic and international factors upon the technology–performance relationship in the natural gas industries, and compares their relative implications for energy sector development in both countries since independence.
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| 8 |
ID:
135864
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Energy Poverty Action Initiative of the World Economic Forum suggests that ‘access to energy is fundamental to improving quality of life and is a key imperative for economic development’. This is particularly true in Central Asia, where winters are harsh and long. Changes in energy prices affect the purchasing power of households, hitting the poor in particular. The impact very much depends on a household's energy basket and the available strategies for switching to alternative energy sources. Using data from the 2011 Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey, this article analyses the profile of household energy consumption and the impact of electricity tariff increases on the probability that households would switch to alternative energy sources. The results suggest that households would respond to an electricity price increase by increasing consumption of fuels; households would be likely to move away from electricity-only heating and towards stove-only heating.
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