ECR presentation by Lise Desvallées

1. LISE DESVALLEES, PHD STUDENT, LATTS, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS-EST
AN URBAN POLITICAL ECOLOGY APPROACH OF DOMESTIC ENERGY DEPRIVATION
SITUATIONS IN PORTUGAL AND CATALONIA, PRESENTATION FOR THE PAN EUROPEAN
EARLY CAREER RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM
This presentation is based on my ongoing PhD on the construction of energy vulnerability situations in
Spain and Portugal, using an Urban political ecology framework. In these countries, the economic crisis
has triggered a growth in energy deprivation situations, due to previous urban processes that created
the socio material context for energy vulnerabilities.
To study these vulnerabilities, I draw on an Urban political ecology field, that was developed in the
1990’s to study the socio-materiality of urban processes and is now bridging two approaches. The Actor
network theory engages in a meaningful understanding of the agency played by non-human actors. It
fuses physical conditions with discourses, representations, cultural norms, and political interests. Urban
political ecology combines this ANT framework with a political economy approach, thus offering a radical
critique aimed at reflecting the positions of power, and the tensions and conflicts that produce these
socio-material processes in urban environments.
In Spain and Portugal, using an Urban political ecology approach has led me to develop a research
strategy to encompass the scalar construction of energy vulnerabilities, from the contested national
narratives to the physical contexts at the household level. Following this framework, energy vulnerability
can be studied as a socio material product of two great national narratives that have embedded
vulnerability in the urban fabric.
After the burst of the housing bubble and to start a new economic dynamic, Spain and Portugal engaged
in national energy transition strategy towards renewables. Allowing companies to act as oligopolies,
governments increased compensatory taxes and levies on electricity to both finance renewables and
compensate conventional companies from their possible losses, without establishing efficient special
tariffs to insure access to vulnerable consumers. As such, these policies privatized positive externalities
of renewable energy, and publicized negative ones on all consumers. Portuguese and Spaniards now
pay the amongst the highest electricity prices in EU.
This financial burden is unequally shared, depending on where households can afford to live and the
type of energy they have access to. The socio material context of Spanish and Portuguese urbanisation
processes is the developmental goal to build nations of owners, through incentives and a legislation
encouraging urban growth. It created an urban fabric characterized by low levels of energy efficiency,
and a dependence on electricity as the only vector for low income houses. In a climate where good
insulation prevents most cold related illnesses, and in countries where electricity prices have doubled in
the past five years, where they can afford to live determines the possibilities for households to attain
sufficient levels of energy access.
These networked socio material processes are contested. The most visible forms of confrontations take
place in Catalonia, where unprecedented levels of conflicts and social mobilizations turned energy
poverty into a new and debated social policy. Portuguese and Spanish leftist parties in the opposition
have criticized the definition of energy prices, blaming governments for comforting energy oligopolies.
At the household level, the existence of social mobilizations influences the possible responses. In Porto,
energy prices are contested with illegal connexions in neighbourhoods, whereas in Barcelona, a whole
range of mobilization and experimentation is taking place. Energy prices and legislation, but also
domestic equipment and household practices are at the centre of an incremental movement aiming at
reducing “energy poverty”. This difference can be traced to the making of democracies after the
simultaneous fall of dictatorships. Whereas Catalonia has historically institutionalized social
mobilizations, creating the space for debates and conflicts, Portuguese parties were disconnected from
revolutionary movements. Elites are less responsive to popular claim-making and « the street » is
unlikely to be able to mount a challenge capable of altering strategies and policies
The main challenge in the study of energy vulnerability in Spain and Portugal is that mild winters make
it less visible and intolerable than in Northern countries. In Portugal, domestic heating is seen as a luxury
for vulnerable households who rather allocate resources to food and shelter. Social assistance and
social housing institutions take for granted the fact that households will never be able to afford such
expenses, and a larger political climate tends to blame poor households for mismanaging their income.

2. LISE DESVALLEES, PHD STUDENT, LATTS, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS-EST
Hence, even though Portuguese winter excess mortality rates atop European levels, doing research on
a social problem that has no name and little statistical data is a challenge.