Energy as social relation: Refugees’ energy commons for infrastructuring beyond the grid is the title of PREFIGURE’s first scientific publication.
Written by project partners Maria Kaika and Charalampos Tsavdaroglou from the University of Amsterdam, this paper reimagines energy as a social relationship of (re)production, focusing on the often-overlooked intersection of refugees, housing insecurity, and energy practices. Based on ethnographic research with refugees living in squatted houses in Thessaloniki, Greece, it introduces the concept of the ‘refugees’ energy commons‘ to illustrate how refugee communities organise themselves to meet their energy needs by repairing, maintaining and improvising energy infrastructures to provide heating, cooling, insulation, cooking and communication.
Browse it here