Justice, resilience and illegality: Energy vulnerability in romani settlements in Bulgaria

Abstract

Babourkova addresses the potential interaction of environmental justice, resilience and illegality in the uneven geography of electricity access in Romani neighbourhoods in Bulgaria. She provides a detailed description of semi-legal and illegal forms of electricity access in the Fakulteta neighbourhood in Sofia. The analysis of such solidarity-based inter-household electricity supply arrangements is framed through the lens of energy (in)justice and shows how legal frameworks may limit adequate access to services in neighbourhoods where the violation of building regulations is the norm. In their strife for dignified existence, Romani households seek to redress the collective injustice of limited legal electricity provision through individual acts of encroachment on the electricity network. However, such acts tend to endanger the resilience of electricity networks and to increase neighbourhood-wide energy vulnerability.