Narratives of Modernity in Friction: Distributed Solar Energy for Development in India

In 2015, the Indian Prime Minister launched the International Solar Alliance (ISA), a global initiative with headquarters in India. Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems, which are the focus of this study, are particularly suited for distributed generation: their modularity and scalability make them easy to configure so as to meet most power and space requirements; as a result, they can be installed in close proximity to the point of consumption. Typically owned by natural persons or cooperatives of people, distributed PV solar energy systems stage the rise of energy 'prosumers'. The technological arrangements of the PV materiality thus 'afford' to construe the transition from carbon to low-carbon modernity in ethical terms: through distributed solar energy, vulnerable rural and remote communities come to shoulder the - politically difficult to place - blame for anthropogenic climate change; expiating this blame requires a model of ethical self-formation based on the acknowledgement of local, distributed agency. As it comes to be accepted as a universally desirable ideal - distributed solar energy for rural electrification acquires the quality of 'public good'. Understanding the deployment of distributed solar energy in these terms is important: this study does not want to be an account of eroded state sovereignty in a (neo)-liberalising world; instead, it aims to illuminate how previous aspirations overlap, potentially colliding, with the ethical project of realising a new public good, resting on new frameworks of statecraft and the economy.
Purpose, research questions and relevance
Political in nature, the research will be conducted at the 'social interface' between the initiators of a global pro-solar discourse, and the local actors in different positions of power to negotiate the translation of this discourse into reality. It addresses two main sets of question: (1) What does a modernity achieved through distributed solar energy look like in the experiences of local actors with a stake in policy-making and of rural and remote communities? What frameworks of statecraft and the economy characterise it? (2) How do these experiences, and the frameworks of statecraft and the economy that characterise them, interact with those prescribed by the dominant narrative of a solar modernity? What subjectivities are produced by this interaction? The proposed research intends to explore these timely concerns and contribute to a growing area of inquiry by placing the anthropology of energy in dialogue with the anthropology of development, the state and the economy. Context and methodology The study consists of ethnographic research of the making of solar energy policies in India and West Bengal, and Sagar Island. It focuses on two main informant groups: the actors with a stake in local policy-making, members of lobby associations and advocacy groups for solar energy, private consultants in the solar energy sector, representatives of state agencies in the context of India's international cooperation on energy, and in particular GIZ; on the other side, the Bengali-speaking residents of one village on the Sagar Island who generate electricity through community-owned PV solar energy systems. The first group of informants will be engaged through in-depth interviews; attendance of conferences, meetings, consultations and discussions; textual analysis of reports, policy papers, official statements and case studies. In order to capture the 'temporality' factor, the project will also involve life-history interviews and archival research. Research at the grassroots level of fieldwork focuses on memories of life on the island before the deployment of solar and hopes attached to rural electrification; perceived livelihood improvement through the use of solar compared to other energy sources; perceptions of the environment and climate change etc