Jessel et al. note that their goal was "to comprehensively understand the predictors and outcomes of energy insecurity" (2019, 13). They also remark that the literature "demonstrated a clear lack of cohesion and systematic guidelines around research on household energy," which, according to the authors, posed a "formidable challenge" to their ability to "synthesize the literature and draw conclusions from it" (2019, 13).
I find these commitments to comprehesiveness and synthesis be in contradition to the authors commitments to intersectionality and to the fact that "energy insecurity is a complex problem, and it does not occur in a vacuum" (2019, 10). Despite all of their rich documentation of diversity, here at the end they seem to fall back on the scientistic idea that scholars need to develop a single, comprehensive logic that encompasses this diversity in order to be able to move forward. This drive for uniformity neglects the feminist observation that "there is no singular or uniform social timespace in contemporary capitalism" (Bear et al. 2015). The world is an inextricably messy place; but this messiness is actually a resource, rather than a problem. It provides us with potential "lines of flight" that help us escape the compunction for enclosure, territorialization, and totalization (Deleuze and Guattari 1987). And ethnography, styled as "thick description" is a method of tapping into the transformative potential of that resource. As JK Gibson-Graham point out, "The revolutionary contribution of thick description and weak theory is to help make these otherwise hidden pathways apparent" (2014, 151).
Jessel et al. review the vast literature on energy insecurity from 1990-2018 and they do a great job identifying both its strengths and weaknesses. Thus, this article is useful in providing a base of what aspects, dimensions, or dynamics of energy have been covered and how. Furthermore, their article can also serve as a useful "cheat sheet" of the socio-cultural factors to pay attention to when studying energy insecurity or other energy related phenomena.
After reading, I am curious about the relationship between energy in/security and energy il/literacy: i.e. are there any patterns or correlations between levels of security and frequencies in the type (van den Broek) or level (Blyth and Sovacool) of energy literacy? Can an improvement in energy literacy help populations become more energy secure?
"Chronic energy insecurity is a long-term issue that can arise from a consistent inability to afford or access adequate energy to meet household needs" (2019, 3).
"Acute energy insecurity is a short-term issue that tends to arise from infrastructural, maintenance, environmental, or other external sources that disrupt access to energy sources" (2019, 4).
"The resilience reserve is a framework that describes how resilience that should be preserved for use in a specific event, such as in response to a natural disaster, becomes depleted due to constant use in response to a greater prevalence of chronic daily struggles" (2019, 3).
Jessel et al. use this review to make a number of interventions into the energy security literature including: 1) that scholars should recognize a distinction between chronic and acute forms of energy insecurity; 2) the current literature on energy insecurity is lacking an intersectional frame; 3) the current literature reflects a lack in consistency in criteria and methods of research; 4) the literature lacks a consideration of the impacts of energy insecurity on health.