View article

This paper makes the case that a lack of political and institutional recognition underpins the (re)production of domestic energy poverty. Previous research into the drivers of energy poverty has tended to focus on household-scale material and economic factors, with relatively little attention paid to the symbolic structures that act to legitimise deprivation. To evidence our argument, we draw on a case study of Poland during the period 2010–2015, conducted via in-depth interviews with high-level decision-makers and experts. We utilise Nancy Fraser’s concept of ‘misrecognition’ to argue that during this period those suffering from energy poverty were discursively marginalised in two interlinked ways. First, ‘non-recognition’, in that the lived reality of energy poverty and the complexity of its causes were largely ‘rendered invisible’ in mainstream political and policy discourse. Second, ‘disrespect’, in that many dominant …