Chapter 6. Delving at the Core of Everyday Life: Between Power Legacies and Political Struggles, the Case of Wood-Burning Stoves in France
Résumé
Nathalie Ortar’s ethnographic account of energy consumption habits in Chapter 6 also demonstrates a modest form of resistance to state co-option of energy practices. She explores the relationship between national energy legacies, national policies towards new energy politics to meet international goals and household politics. What policy-makers call the ‘demand-side response’ offers a new set of questions and fields for anthropologists. Following energy policies into the home allows anthropologists to understand what energy consumption practices (like laundry, cooking and cleaning) actually mean and how they intertwine with other intimate economies (cf. Shove 2003; Pink 2004; Pink et al. 2015). Ortar’s study among French rural and suburban families explores the social and cultural thickness of energy choices. While energy networks often seal social contracts that prove hard to untie (Johnson 2016), a close examination of daily heating practices allows Ortar to understand the alternative energy paths that people take despite the strong path dependency of national energy systems. Ironically, the dominant path is challenged within the state itself by the need to meet European energy goals, a climate challenge that has also encouraged the return of wood as a significant source of domestic energy. The close attention Ortar gives to individual energy choices reveals the complex bricolage of values and experiences that make up energy choices. Her concrete description of heating practices opens up a space to think about energy practices as a residue of multiple and often contradictory legacies inherited from the state, the family, communities and material infrastructures.
