Energy, the city and everyday life: Living with power outages in post-war Lebanon

This paper uses a qualitative approach to explore the multi-faceted experience of power outages in urban areas of Lebanon, the nature and practices of the resulting informal electricity services that have filled that gap, and their impact on everyday life. It argues that the different practical solutions that households have adopted in order to augment electricity provision to their homes create a differentiated experience of infrastructural services in the city, its neighbourhoods and buildings. It explores these impacts through three junctions: the network of informal electricity providers, new routines and practices of households and the objects and artefacts that constitute the energy landscape in the city. This research contributes to an understanding of relationships produced by these 'new' and informal infrastructures.