Energy poverty in Brussels Region: Asymmetric social aid procedures, and (mis-)recognition

Three years of fieldwork on energy poverty in the Brussels’ Region and 20 in-depth interviews with persons experiencing a difficult access to domestic energy allow questioning the concept of social justice and the so-called energy justice paradigm. Neither access to energy nor access to social help are equal for all, as this presentation will show. In this Brussels’ Region, policy instruments to fight energy poverty are numerous and varied re their funding: public (regional or municipal), public in cooperation with NGOs, and so on. The detailed observation of these procedures and their more or... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Bartiaux, Françoise
Baudaux, Anne
4th Energy and Society Conference: \"Energy transitions in a divided world\" of the Research Network of Sociology of Environment
Dokumenttyp: conferenceObject
Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
Schlagwörter: Energy poverty / Social aid / Belgium / Recognition
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26587968
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/210336

Three years of fieldwork on energy poverty in the Brussels’ Region and 20 in-depth interviews with persons experiencing a difficult access to domestic energy allow questioning the concept of social justice and the so-called energy justice paradigm. Neither access to energy nor access to social help are equal for all, as this presentation will show. In this Brussels’ Region, policy instruments to fight energy poverty are numerous and varied re their funding: public (regional or municipal), public in cooperation with NGOs, and so on. The detailed observation of these procedures and their more or less bureaucratic and asymmetric characteristics appears to be linked to the feelings of misrecognition, both among “the users” (as they are called by the social workers) and among some social workers themselves. The individualisation of responsibilities is also at stake. For “the users”, misrecognition is often associated with stress, lack of self-confidence, anger and/or shame that prevent them to keep track with administrative procedures and to get the best of institutional help.