I am a human geographer with a background in physics. I received my Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, with an emphasis from the Program in Critical Theory, at the University of California, Berkeley. My Ph.D. dissertation investigated the presumptions and precarity imbedded in contemporary electricity systems by applying critical social theory, social science research methods, and electric power systems monitoring. Motivated by my PhD work, I began researching the build-out of electric grids under various political and economic regimes (mainly of the US, Ghana, and Tanzania), to explore the relationship between nation-state building, colonial and post-colonial interrelations, and capitalist investment on so-called successful and unsuccessful electric systems. My long-term goal is to construct a historicized account of the differences in power, reliability, and responsibility within infrastructure services of the global North and global South. For more on my research program visit https://www.energygeographies.com/.
Currently, I’m working on a book titled “Hooked: Electrification and the Making of the Modern Consumer,” which makes the case for studying the history of electrical reliance over the long durée, while focusing on the ordinary consumer(s) and worker(s) as central characters in the development of large socio-technical infrastructure. The book looks across the US to compare histories of electrical dependency in regions with distinct politics, cultures, and supposed values. Along with a broader US history, the project dives into that of the Pacific Northwest to study interconnected actors and networks caught up together amid evolving industry debates and practices. Using archives of the BPA (the Federal organization in charge of transmission), and the Seattle City & Light archives (a customer of the BPA, and also the utility in charge of serving local Seattle residents), the project provides a story of electrification within broader changes in the political economy and regulatory milieus that shaped growing electrical power (from large-scale transmission systems down to distribution levels and household wiring). In doing so, the book explores the history of the physical grid (e.g., voltage and frequency fluctuations and standardization, and everyday outages, intermittency, and disconnections) alongside the actors and actions it mediated and through which it’s been mediated. The book documents American consumer subjects not as mere “load” or potential “demand” in need of “building up,” but rather as people with power and leverage that produced fundamental changes within the histories of their infrastructure services.
I am also an artist and a ceramicist. I use visual art to express the complexities of my research, showing through sculpting and deconstructing thrown forms the poetic nature of infrastructure. “Art and Soul” in Dispatches Magazine is a personal story on my art and the work of pricing it. And Electric Visions and Infrastructural Beings are curated film series I put together that use animation, fiction, documentary, and experimental films to showcase the infrastructurally charged experiences of our physical and social world.
Selected Publications
Veronica Jacome. “Oil Spaces. Exploring the Global Petroleumscape (Carola H (ed.), 2022)”, Journal of Energy History/Revue d'Histoire de l'Énergie [Online], n°12.
Sage Kime, Veronica Jacome, David Pellow, Ranjit Deshmukh. Evaluating equity and justice in low-carbon energy transitions. Environmental Research Letters. November 2023; DOI: 18(12):123003.
Veronica Jacome. “Limits of energy access research on unreliability.” Journal of International Development 35, no. 8 (2023): 2626-2644.
Paul Munro, Veronica Jacome, & Shanil Samarakoon. (2022). Off-Grid Enterprise: A Critical History of Small-Scale Off-Grid Solar in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Off-Grid Solar Electrification in Africa: A Critical Perspective (pp. 25-64). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Veronica Jacome, Noah Klugman, Belinda Grunfeld, Catherine Wolfram, Duncan Callaway, and Isha Ray. “Power Quality and Modern Energy for All.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jul 2019, 201903610; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1903610116
Veronica Jacome and Isha Ray. “The prepaid electric meter: Rights, relationships and reification in Unguja, Tanzania.” World Development 105 (2018): 262-272.
Research and Teaching Interests
Critical Theory, History of Electric Power Systems, Resource Geography, Comparative Sociology, Politics, Basic Services and Infrastructure Studies, Infrastructure Poetics and Aesthetic Theory, Electric Power System, Physics, Post-Colonial Africa, Political Economy of Development, History of Development and Underdevelopment