The prepaid electric meter: Rights, relationships and reification in Unguja, Tanzania
The prepaid electric meter: Rights, relationships and reification in Unguja, Tanzania
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预付费电表：坦桑尼亚安古贾的权利、关系和具体化
DOI：
10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.01.007
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
Ray, Isha
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jacome, Veronica;Ray, Isha
可持续发展目标7以灯泡和电源按钮为标志，实际上促进了基本电力服务的普遍权利。要使所有人都能获得服务，既要负担得起，又要回收成本，而公用事业公司（和捐助者）越来越多地要求用户承担更大的成本回收负担。我们认为，电力系统是由用户，供应商和服务本身之间的一组关系的基础：这些关系是由米，商品化的技术调解。使用一个恒定的比较方法，并根据一年的采访和文件分析，我们比较后付费和预付费电表制度在坦桑尼亚的Unguja。我们要问：支付方式对（住宅）用户、公用事业以及实现可持续发展目标7的前景有什么不同？我们发现，预付费电表变得具体化，其自动化的监测和测量机制，使一度熟悉的抄表器过时，并切断电流，只要客户的“单位”已经用完。物化使得公用事业公司对客户来说更加不可见，现在，客户将糟糕的服务或高昂的账单归咎于电表，而不是公用事业公司。然而，我们的采访显示，预付费电表得到了广泛的支持，因为经济上脆弱的用户对债务的恐惧大于对黑暗的恐惧，他们愿意将自己的消费控制权交给新电表。这些调查结果驳斥了人们对非洲存在“不付款文化”的普遍指责。我们还发现，预付费电表可能会激励部分返回生物质燃料时，现金是不可用的-正是普遍获得电力应该防止的行为。我们的结论是，如果撒哈拉以南非洲的电力供应完全取决于使用前的付款，这就不完全符合普遍获得基本电力的承诺。
Sustainable Development Goal 7, with the light bulb and power button as its symbols, in effect promotes the universal right to basic electricity services. Access for all demands both affordability and cost-recovery, and utilities (and donors) increasingly require users to shoulder the greater burden of cost-recovery. We argue that the electricity system is underpinned by a set of relationships among user, provider and the service itself: these relationships are mediated by the meter, the technology of commodification. Using a constant-comparison approach, and based on a year of interviews and document analysis, we compare postpaid and prepaid meter regimes in Unguja, Tanzania. We ask: what difference does the mode of payment make to the (residential) user, the utility, and to the prospects for meeting SDG 7? We find that the prepaid meter becomes reified with its automated monitoring and measurement mechanism, rendering the once-familiar meter reader obsolete, and shutting off the flow of electricity as soon as the customer’s “units” have run down. Reification makes the utility more invisible to the customer, who now blames the meter rather than the utility for poor service or high bills. Our interviews reveal broad support for the prepaid meter, however, because economically vulnerable users expressed greater fear of debt than of the dark, and were willing to cede control of their consumption to the new meter. These findings undermine the common accusation of a “culture of nonpayment” in Africa. We also find that prepaid meters may incentivize the partial return to biomass-based fuels when cash is not available – exactly the behavior that universal access to electricity is supposed to prevent. We conclude that, if access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa becomes entirely contingent on payment prior to use, this is not fully compatible with a commitment to universal basic access.
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2013
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