From informal to formal: understanding gendered energy transitions through filmmaking in Cape Town and Mumbai

Abstract

Provision of affordable housing and energy access is an urgent challenge in India and South Africa. This study adopts a participatory filmmaking approach to understand women’s agency in low-income domestic housing in Mumbai and Cape Town. Through their films, the women shared insights of how the transitional housing environment has impacted their everyday routines and how they are utilising the access to energy. By employing creative, participatory filmmaking practice within the female community, the research explored an alternative approach to understand energy demand. The cycles of participatory filmmaking were followed by workshops, interviews, and acknowledgement of participation. The films revealed that access to formal housing and electricity grid have led to improvements in the women’s welfare and wellbeing, showing the importance of privacy and the development of personal leisure activities. Yet echoing Murray Li, there is nothing ‘inevitable’ about women’s energy transitions and energy access does not necessarily reduce the women’s time spent on household chores: in Mumbai, women still cook 3–4 times per day, every cooking moment taking 1–2 hours, amounting to women putting in 56 hours of (unpaid) work per week. The study advocates the use of film as a method in energy studies: the films were able to capture the lived experience in these low-income groups, heterogeneity of the material arrangements, the pride and skills in cooking. The films enabled the participants to see their ‘invisible’, unpaid work and to express their aspirations giving us a glimpse of what ‘empowerment’ from the women’s perspective would look like.

Keywords:

• Energy access
• gender
• participatory filmmaking
• slum rehabilitation housing
• transitional housing

Acknowledgements

The compilation films can be viewed at: https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/3595494 (Cape Town) and https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/3595533 (Mumbai). The authors acknowledge the invaluable support from Development Action Group (DAG), Miradi and Doctors for You (DFY) in conducting this research. We are extremely grateful to all research participants in Cape Town and Mumbai for sharing their experiences and for the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback in writing this paper. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the participating organisations of the funding body.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Network grant ‘Filming Energy/FERN’ (G103885).

Notes on contributors

Minna Sunikka-Blank

Minna Sunikka-Blank is Professor of Architecture and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge. Professor Sunikka-Blank is Director of Studies and Fellow in Architecture in Churchill College, Cambridge.

Ronita Bardhan

Ronita Bardhan is Associate Professor of Sustainable Built Environment at the Department of Architecture in Cambridge. Dr Bardhan is Director of Studies and Fellow in Architecture in Selwyn College, Cambridge.

Priti Mohandas

Priti Mohandas is PhD researcher in Geography at the University of Cambridge, undertaking research on informal settlement rehabilitation, gender and energy in Cape Town, South Africa. She has previously worked in UN-Habitat and NGOs in South Africa.