Changing Hearths and Minds in Rural India

The cooking technologies, fuels, and practices of low income families in the Global South have long been an active site for development interventions. I focus on clean cooking energy technologies promoted to low-income families in rural India and intended to facilitate an energy transition in their kitchens for a variety of health, environmental and social benefits. “Clean cooking”, it is hoped, will empower women, improve their health, and mitigate global climate change. This talk is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in India, and long term research studying engineers and scientists conducting transnational field research to generate insights on household energy transitions, and the health and social impacts of air pollution, and climate change. In addition to 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in India in collaboration with community-based organizations, I draw upon my role as a social scientist and participant-observer in a randomized control trial (RCT) on cookstove adoption and…