[Stoves] Forestry and Fuel

[Samer Abdelnour]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for sharing your experience, and the specific parameters in the
context within which you work. Can you contextualize what you mean
when you suggest industrial/agriculture logging is a 'one time thing'?
I'd be keen to learn more.

As Crispin suggests, there are very lucrative incentives for
organizations that depend on the rhetoric that stoves are a panacea
for some of the world's greatest problems. We are all aware that some
very large players, from private companies to NGOs support stoves for
their ability to generate profits and resources for humanitarian
programming. Certainly, the 'stoves reduces rape' rhetoric has
mobilized political advocacy, fundraising efforts, prize monies, and
supported humanitarian industry efforts in Darfur and elsewhere. In a
soon to be published article, I document other motivations for the
construction of this rhetoric. The link is provided below for anyone
interested.

My suggestion that the fuel-efficient stove as a solution to major
problems is mythology is something I take very seriously. As you are
all aware, stoves are a relatively straightforward technology. By this
I mean that they are intended, through combustion, to produce heat.
With this heat they cook. The more efficient the design, the less fuel
Y required to cook X. Straightforward, causal logic. However, to
extend the causality between Y and significantly complex problems such
as sexual violence and deforestation requires a number of constructed
narratives that verge on myth. For example, in the case of sexual
violence the lives of (mostly poor African) displaced women are
relegated to having two domestic roles: collecting wood and cooking.

In addition, women are suggested as being safe in camps (wherever
these may be), while outside they are exposed to violence. These are
highly disingenuous and relegate the vulnerabilities and complexities
of violence. Yet, with these taken as true, the reduction of Y fuel to
produce X food can prevent rape. It is assumed that through the simple
act of cooking, women can protect themselves. All NGOs might do is
test whether or not women leave the camp less frequently, and the rest
of the narratives fall into place. In the mentioned paper, I point to
numerous reports that suggest why these narratives are fallacies.

A western analogy. In recent years, a number of police officials (i.e.
Toronto, New York, etc.) suggested that women who wear short skirts
provoke violence. Activist groups responded with global 'slut walks';
I've yet to see NGOs start handing out pants as a technology to
prevent the rape of skirt-wearing women.

The narratives suggesting that the poorest and most vulnerable people
have the agency to solve the world's greatest problems -
deforestation, violence, carbon pollution - through simple act of
cooking is very dangerous. I believe this puts an unruly burden on the
shoulders of poor women. These again depend on a whole slew of
imagined narratives that assume away complex reality in order hold
poor women as capable of solving these problems. Further, this
implicitly suggests the act of cooking is also responsible for these
problems, and not major industries, or excessive energy
consumption/consumerism of the world's industrialized middle class.

Of course, I'm not knocking the importance of stove innovations and
their relation to real-world problems. However, I believe the same
methodological accountability applied in developing and testing stoves
(which you all take great care in) should be held to the extraordinary
claims NGOs and advocacy groups are applying to them.

For those of you interested, the link to the paper is below, which
details the construction of the 'stoves reduce rape' narrative and
some of the implications I suggest above. Always happy for feedback
and discussion.

Warmly,
Samer


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259104849_Technologizing_Humanitarian_Space_Darfur_Advocacy_and_the_Rape-Stove_Panacea/file/60b7d529fb1e6ecbd5.pdf?origin=publication_detail