Building a film database to support decision-making for energy infrastructure in low income housing in India and South Africa

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The Research Network addresses the key development challenges of clean and affordable energy (SDG7), sustainable cities (SDG11) and gender equality (SDG5). The project builds on the findings of our three interdisciplinary GCRF projects in India and South Africa, addresses the gap identified in these projects (poor communication between policy makers and the local community and lack of women's participation in energy policy) and aims to maximise their impact. Energy infrastructure affects women in particular as they are at home more than men, carry out most household practices and are extremely dependant of social networks. In developing countries, women's traditional role at home leads to them having far more influence than men on domestic energy consumption but women's involvement in UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 7 (energy) and 11 (safe, resilient and sustainable human settlements) remains an under-researched area, especially in the urban context. Our previous research has revealed policy makers' total lack of understanding of women's daily realities in low income settlements in India and South Africa: new energy and housing infrastructure has led to households practices moving from outdoors to indoors, energy intense lifestyle and debt.Predicting the future of energy demand lies in understanding the everyday life that sources domestic energy consumption. Yet approaches to effectively capture the everyday life in domestic environments are a blind spot in current energy research. The challenges are considerable and call for a radical new approach. Film is an art of recording that is always imbued with a pre-existing reality associated with a social and physical context within given cultural, political and environmental circumstances. Cinema is an unused vehicle to study the unravelling of domesticity within dwellings that are notoriously difficult to access given the sociocultural context. The Research Network explores how cinematic analysis and short documentary films could provide crucial new data concerning womens' daily practices and energy use. This could allow us to make recommendations that could result in the creation of more inclusive, affordable and clean energy infrastructure. This Research Network will address this development challenge specifically by: a) analyzing our existing CineSpaceMuse database on everyday household practices in Indian and African cinema; b) making a series of short documentary films on location in Mumbai and Cape Town; and c) testing the approach on policy makers in a series of workshops in Mumbai, Cape Town and Cambridge. The international collaborators (Indian Institute of Technology/IITB, City of Cape Town, Development Action Group/DAG, Doctors For You/DFU) have been in key role on developing this proposal and identifying development challenges in the field. Their participation in crucial in the workshops, the analysis and dissemination. The project uses films in two ways. First, by adopting the methodology and the software developed for the AHRC CineMuseSpace project [https://www.cinemusespace.arct.cam.ac.uk]. This part of the study will directly build on our CineGenus project [https://www.cinemusespace.arct.cam.ac.uk/news/cinegenus]. Second, PI and Co-I will make short documentary films (each 2-5min) on location in low income housing in Mumbai and Cape Town that pin down the occupants' daily practices, which interact with energy, mainly electricity. The novelty lies in using the fiction films' data as a reflective tool to map energy consumption patterns which are in sync with daily lives. Short film database, policy briefing and design guidelines for energy infrastructure in low income housing will be written together with all project partners and discussed in the workshops.