WHEN ACCESS ISN’T ADOPTION: SOCIAL AND MATERIAL DETERMINANTS OF CLEAN-COOKING PRACTICE IN KIGALI
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18623/rvd.v22.n4.3601Keywords:
Clean Cooking, Household Energy Practices, Access–Adoption Gap, Fuel Stacking, Material AuthorityAbstract
This study examines clean-cooking transitions in Kigali, Rwanda, showing how policy, market dynamics, social obligations, climatic events, and kitchen materialities jointly shape everyday fuel choice. Using a qualitative narrative-ethnographic design, we combined 20 semi-structured interviews, 100 in-home observations, 15 transect walks, and 10 focus-group discussions with 50 households, supplemented by document and grey-literature review. Narrative inquiry reveals an enduring access–adoption gap: despite nominal availability of LPG and electricity, patterned frictions keep households fuel-stacking. Temporal pressures (school and work rhythms, rain events) and sensory conventions (flavour and texture as quality criteria) sustain charcoal “finishing,” while material authority (prepayment meters, mobile-money balances, cylinder custody, and last-mile access), mediates when clean fuels are practicable in real time. Adoption trajectories are thus driven less by device ownership than by situated interactions among people, artefacts, places, and rules. We show that cylinders, meters, and phones distribute decision-making power across household members and vendors, and that rain-induced transitions and “anticipated flavour” shape sequence choices even in connected homes. These findings explain why “access” alone rarely yields exclusive clean-fuel use. We argue for practice-aware interventions that pair technical provision with measures that smooth refill and credit frictions, redesign metering and custody arrangements to align authority with primary cooks, and leverage peer forums for safety, taste, and skill retraining. Because these determinants are gendered and time-sensitive, programmes that reduce the temporal and cognitive load on primary cooks are likely to deliver larger and more durable gains in emissions reduction, health, and everyday reliability than access-only strategies.
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