Utilities-based indebtedness: Living and surviving the crisis in social reproduction in Greece

基于公用事业的债务：希腊社会再生产危机中的生存和生存

• 批准号: ES/Y00809X/1
• 负责人: Aliki Koutlou
• 金额: $ 13.74万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY00809X%2F1
• 关键词: Utilities; based; indebtedness; Living; surviving

Up until the recent European energy crisis, it was low-income groups falling short on energy bill payments or constantly worrying about doing so. However, we are currently witnessing a proliferation of worrying about energy costs in public discourse across the continent as well as within households with an increasing number of people falling into utility bill arrears. The proposed research cuts across these pertinent issues as it is the first comprehensive study of indebtedness accumulated via unpaid water and energy household bills, i.e., utilities-based indebtedness (UI). This type of indebtedness is under-researched not only in Greece but elsewhere too. Arrears on utility bills are considered an indicator of energy poverty (Petrova, 2018). They are also commonly considered as an aspect of over-indebtedness, a type of debt burdening households already servicing loans, mortgages and credit cards (Alleweldt et al., 2013; Kempson, 2015). Yet, considering them as 'excessive' unmet obligations or as an indicator of insufficient energy usage still begs a question: Is the inability of households to pay their utility bills and the hardship they experience in their daily lives contingent to their personal circumstances or is it rooted to a broader systemic issue signalling the deteriorating capacities of the world's population to meet their basic needs on a daily and intergenerational basis? Moving beyond arguments on personal contingencies, my project adopts a feminist political economy perspective which centres on how the day-to-day reproduction of humans and daily life is shaped by politico-economic and gendered structures of power. Through document analysis and interviews with people who experienced UI in Thessaloniki, I argue that households fell into UI because the austerity policies introduced during the Greek debt crisis reduced their monetary resources and increased their social reproductive costs. In foregrounding household agency, I elucidate how UI deepens the social reproduction crisis, thereby advancing work on social reproduction and indebtedness. I analyse how UI further deteriorates living standards by instilling a creeping economic logic, which forces households to rework their daily reproductive and financial strategies and to prioritise debt payments over bodily integrity and future wellbeing. I also demonstrate how UI makes social reproduction unsustainable by reproducing class and gender inequalities and foreground how kinship and friendship networks - often overlooked by political economists - become indispensable axes of solidarity for the everyday survival of the indebted.The Fellowship will allow me to rework my PhD thesis into a monograph and a journal article, advancing a novel interdisciplinary and intersectional approach that contributes to a critical understanding of daily life with indebtedness in Greece through the linkages between processes of economic restructuring and shifts in the organisation of social reproduction with a specific focus on the role non-market reproductive relations, such as kinship and friendship. This will bring the discipline of political economy into dialogue with sociology and human geography at the interface of gender relations, debt as well as energy poverty and affordability. Moreover, I will develop a new project, a comparative analysis between Greece and the UK investigating the gendered aspects of the current energy crisis in the context of the conflicting demands between decarbonisation and the energy scarcity induced by the Ukrainian war. The resources and expertise available at UoM (e.g., Prof MacGregor; Dr Petrova) and within the NWSSDTP (e.g., Dr Tepe Belfrage, Liverpool; Prof Skeggs, Dr Fernandez Arrigoitia, Lancaster) will be crucial to achieve both goals. Through the project, I will also expand my networks in and beyond anglophone academia and present my findings in written media formats in English and Greek for maximum reach and impact.

直到最近的欧洲能源危机，这是低收入群体无法支付能源账单或不断担心这样做。然而，我们目前看到，在整个非洲大陆的公共话语中，以及在家庭内部，越来越多的人陷入水电费拖欠的情况下，对能源成本的担忧正在扩散。拟议的研究跨越了这些相关问题，因为它是第一次全面研究通过未付的水和能源家庭账单积累的债务，即，基于效用的债务（UI）。这种类型的债务不仅在希腊，而且在其他地方也没有得到充分的研究。拖欠水电费被认为是能源贫困的一个指标（Petrova，2018）。它们通常也被认为是过度负债的一个方面，这是一种已经在偿还贷款、抵押贷款和信用卡的家庭负担沉重的债务（Alleweldt等人，2013; Kempson，2015）。然而，将它们视为“过度”未履行的义务或能源使用不足的指标仍然存在一个问题：家庭无力支付水电费以及他们在日常生活中遇到的困难是否取决于他们的个人情况，还是根源于一个更广泛的系统性问题，表明世界人口满足日常和代际基本需求的能力不断下降根据？超越对个人突发事件的争论，我的项目采用了女权主义政治经济学的观点，其中心是人类和日常生活的日常繁殖是如何由政治经济和性别权力结构塑造的。通过文件分析和采访的人谁经历了UI在塞萨洛尼基，我认为，家庭陷入UI，因为希腊债务危机期间推出的紧缩政策减少了他们的货币资源，增加了他们的社会生殖成本。在突出家庭代理，我阐明UI如何加深社会再生产危机，从而推进工作的社会再生产和负债。我分析了UI如何通过灌输一种缓慢的经济逻辑来进一步恶化生活水平，这种逻辑迫使家庭重新制定日常生殖和财务策略，并将债务支付优先于身体完整性和未来福祉。我还展示了UI如何通过再现阶级和性别不平等使社会再生产不可持续，并突出了亲属关系和友谊网络-通常被政治经济学家忽视-如何成为负债者日常生存不可或缺的团结轴心。奖学金将使我能够将我的博士论文修改为专著和期刊文章，推进一种新的跨学科和交叉的方法，有助于通过经济结构调整过程与社会再生产组织的变化之间的联系，批判性地理解希腊的负债日常生活，重点关注非市场性生育关系的作用，如亲属关系和友谊。这将使政治经济学学科与社会学和人文地理学在性别关系、债务以及能源贫困和负担能力的界面上进行对话。此外，我将开发一个新的项目，希腊和英国之间的比较分析，调查在脱碳和乌克兰战争引起的能源短缺之间的冲突需求的背景下，当前能源危机的性别方面。计量单位现有的资源和专门知识（例如，MacGregor教授; Petrova博士）和NWSSDTP内（例如，利物浦的特佩·贝尔弗拉格博士;兰开斯特的斯凯格斯教授、费尔南德斯博士、阿里戈蒂亚）将对实现这两个目标至关重要。通过该项目，我还将扩大我在英语学术界内外的网络，并以英语和希腊语的书面媒体格式展示我的研究结果，以获得最大的影响力。