This article examines how “humanitarian energy” projects—such as emergency electrification and grid-building—can reproduce older power hierarchies in the very moment they claim to deliver relief. It argues that energy infrastructures carry politics not only in who controls them, but in how they organize time: short-term crisis fixes, long rebuild schedules, and the daily rhythms imposed on recipients and workers. By tracing these temporal entanglements, the authors show how assistance can lock communities into externally defined priorities while shifting burdens onto bodies and routines that are often rendered invisible in policy debates.
Why it might matter to you:
If you study state capacity and social organization, this provides a concrete way to analyze how infrastructure programs can govern populations through schedules, dependencies, and labor demands—not just through formal institutions. It may help you evaluate energy and development interventions by asking what kinds of coordination, discipline, and long-run obligations they silently build into society.
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