For many middle-income households, paying the electricity bill is a mundane, even mindless, act. But for an ever-increasing number of low-income families, the electricity bill—filtered through the racialized materiality of poor-quality housing stock and antidemocratic price regulation—represents something more ominous: looming disconnection, eviction, and a deep spin of vulnerabilities. This article explores the materiality of race in the US South through the prism of southern utilities and maps the political landscape on which contestations over the value of energy are taking place. I ask, how do different conceptualizations of value by utilities, regulators, and energy justice advocates figure into the price of energy and racialized dispossession in the Deep South? I draw attention to the highly elaborated narrative politics of the value of Georgia Power's energy. In conversation with recent anthropological debates about value and “the just price,” I argue that Georgia Power's monopoly on public power engages and reinforces the racialized political economy of the South to produce high home energy prices for low-income families. But it also provokes a decryption of these energy prices by energy justice advocates that connects the silent violence of energy injustice to people's everyday experiences of extractive utility bills.

中文翻译：

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南方政治、南方电价：种族、公用事业监管和能源价值

对于许多中等收入家庭来说，支付电费是一件平凡的、甚至是无意识的行为。但对于越来越多的低收入家庭来说，电费——通过劣质住房和反民主价格监管的种族化物质性过滤——代表着更不祥的事情：迫在眉睫的断电、驱逐和深深的脆弱性。本文通过南方公用事业的棱镜探讨了美国南方种族的重要性，并描绘了正在发生能源价值争论的政治格局。我问，公用事业公司、监管机构对价值的不同概念如何理解？能源正义倡导者是否会考虑能源价格和南方腹地的种族剥夺？我提请大家注意佐治亚电力公司能源价值的高度详尽的叙事政治。在最近关于价值和“公正价格”的人类学辩论的对话中，我认为佐治亚电力公司对公共权力的垄断参与并强化了南方的种族化政治经济，为低收入家庭带来了高家庭能源价格。但它也引发了能源正义倡导者对这些能源价格的解密，将能源不公正的无声暴力与人们日常采掘公用事业账单的经历联系起来。我认为，佐治亚电力公司对公共权力的垄断参与并强化了南方的种族化政治经济，为低收入家庭带来了高家庭能源价格。但它也引发了能源正义倡导者对这些能源价格的解密，将能源不公正的无声暴力与人们日常采掘公用事业账单的经历联系起来。我认为，佐治亚电力公司对公共权力的垄断参与并强化了南方的种族化政治经济，为低收入家庭带来了高家庭能源价格。但它也引发了能源正义倡导者对这些能源价格的解密，将能源不公正的无声暴力与人们日常采掘公用事业账单的经历联系起来。