The ECR committee recently hosted the first webinar in its online series, featuring presentations from the Governance theme.
Mathilde Rainard began with a presentation on her doctoral research, which examines energy poverty policies in England, Scotland, and France through an intersectional lens. She critiques the dominant neoliberal approach in policy design across these contexts, highlighting how current policies primarily focus on age and ability while overlooking gender and ethnicity. This exclusion, she argues, leads to the misrecognition of vulnerable groups. She also explores how intersectional analysis can align with ecofeminism and postgrowth movements to move beyond market-based solutions for addressing energy poverty.
Next, Manon Burbidge presented her doctoral research on refugees’ experiences of energy poverty in the UK, using the participatory Photovoice method. She discusses how asylum policies, austerity measures, and systemic neglect create severe hardships, undermining refugees’ well-being and agency. Her talk sheds light on the psychological toll of energy poverty, the daily struggles refugees face, and the loss of home as a place of security. Like Mathilde, Manon advocates for a more intersectional and humane approach to addressing these overlooked challenges in policy debates.
