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This article was very enlightening on the concept of Hydraulic citizenship and how infrastructure, like water systems play a part in creating a different class of citizenship. A citizenship that is not linear and very fickle as infrastructure plays a role in the way it can be claimed. I liked how the author also presented different sides of the story; one from the residents of Mumbai, who saw difficulties of obtaining water and dealing with engineers as the cause of resorting to water connections and how engineers and city workers saw the matter.
Sarag Kazira .

Reply to Sarah Kazira:

I also found the concept of Hydraulic citizenship useful in understanding the impact of infrastructure on the lived experience of inexplicit citizenship rights and notions of belonging.
One thing I particularly liked about Anand's work in relation to this is that he acknowledged the role categorical concepts such as "slums" and "slum dwellers" play in potentially unjustly creating a 'us vs them' division based on stereotypes. Anand acknowledged his biased disposition when he wrote: "I had not expected her home to be so ordinary- that it would have painted walls, tiled floors, internal plumbing, and be full of children going to private schools. As I set in her home, waiting for tea, I was compelled to reconsider many preconceived ideas that I had about life in the "slums"... " (p.4).
While I thought the author's acknowledgement of the potential impact of engaging with such categorical concepts was necessary, it also made me question how significant role ethnographers like him play in influencing notions of citizenship with the concepts they choose to engage with.

Veronika

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Posting it here - somehow interesting https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4884/Infrastructural-BrutalismArt-and-the-Necropolitics

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Beyond Neoliberalism - but how, what, where?

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Beyond Neoliberalism - but how, what, where?

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Having read the Mains, Anand and the von Schnitzler article, I am particularly interested in understanding the constant shifting of power between the public and the private and what this means for our understanding of neoliberalism. In both Anand and von Schnitzler, the welfare states display neoliberal characteristics and also there are several non-state actors who come into play to make the system "work" (if it can be called that!). In the Mains article, the state continues to occupy a pivotal space in the lives of citizens even though the projects are executed through private partnerships. Mains argues very clearly against using neo-liberalism as a construct to understand these practices, suggesting that the term may have lost its potency.  My question therefore is, what is the place that "neoliberalism" should have when anthropologists take infrastructure as the object of analysis?
-Anuradha-

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Mains examines the different ways in which the government in Ethiopia manages programmes of development for hydroelectricity and road building and how they are perceived. Using Ferguson’s idea of the “thinning of the state”, he assesses the changing role of international business and governmental partnerships and the relationships between the government and the people since the 1980s. The state is still perceived by the people to have a very patriarchal role to provide jobs, housing and electricity. In reality, they are unable to manage any of these because the projects are no longer in their hands and they cannot achieve the end goals by themselves. While confidence in the government is damaged by the dam project which is distant and no one knows where the electricity is made or goes to, the road building is visible and highly disruptive yet seen as a positive sign of progress. State employees in particular remain loyal to the government as they acquire status through their role. Mains only mentioned briefly one person without a work connection to the government and it would be useful to hear their voices to know if and how that changes opinion
Susie

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I found the usage of the concept of ‘enchantment’ by Harvey and Knox an interesting angle to take on road infrastructure. I liked how they linked this to Tsing’s ‘economy of appearances’ by associating roads with the promises and aspirations of speed, political integration and economic progress, whether or not these end up being fulfilled. Their descriptions of how ‘unruly landscapes and citizens’ can disrupt and delay road construction underlines how all forms of infrastructural development do not merely involve technical and material transformations but also require understanding and managing the agency of natural elements and socio-political relations. Yet, the article’s dominant imagery of disintegrating roads, derelict bridges and abandoned buildings seemed to me to evoke more of a sense of disenchantment. This prompted me to question if the notion of ‘enchantment’ was being viewed more through the eyes of the authors rather than the perspectives of the locals. Also, to what extent can citizens remain steadfastly hopeful about their ‘imagined futures’ of development and interconnectivity (as insinuated by the article) when so much of the infrastructural promises remained uncertain and unfulfilled?
- Sheu Jeen

Response, Jacob Heath 685615:
Really liked your critical points! With regard to your closing comments, a friend/acquaintance of mine from Peru who I met at some point during this academic year, has a similar outlook about Peru/Peruvian state, which very much aligns with what you say. I recall him telling me how there is lots of corruption, constant development and building projects coupled with complete disregard/apathy toward Peru’s heritage and development via sustainable ways (he did not use the word sustainable but think it was implied). I believe he said he did not want to go back to Peru because of all this (and much more), alongside how he’s very lucky to ‘make it out’ of Peru so will try to take advantage of this. So, I think he expresses how not everyone from Peru holds this idea of ‘enchantment’ or is hopeful about the future of Peru – thought you might appreciate his point of view, make of it what you will + bear in mind that it is anecdotal :-)

Response: Sara (684725)
I also find idea of associations/perceptions/imaginings of the significance of transport infrastructure fascinating, not least because it's such a personal and subjective topic.

One element is surely cultural - I remember reading that after WWII, Japan chose to prioritise investment in rail (leaving roads comparatively neglected), whilst the U.S.A. took the opposite approach, knowing that it would be beneficial for their domestic car manufacturing industry (raising questions about ideology/values). Whilst both the Shinkansen [Japanese bullet train] and Route 66 [American highway] are evocative, almost mythologised non-human entities, they represent entirely different value systems. I'd even go as far as saying that transport infrastructure can be part of cultural identity/nation-building AND once they reach a border, call into play questions of transnational cooperation. Moreover, both road and rail (despite the 'enchantment' factor) have economic barriers to access (vehicle ownership/tickets).

As a railway enthusiast, this gives me a lot to ponder further!

Response by Priyanka
Sheu brings out an interesting point of whether the discourse of enchantment is as perceived and narrated by the authors (top-down governance). In the present world, coming from a developing country, I could see road and infrastructure relating to connectivity and transportations as both enchanting and disenchanting, as a matter of perception. As correctly pointed out by Sheu the top-down governance does narrate the building of roads and bridges (e.g. Mumbai Sea-Link) as representative of the countries progress with respect to technology and modernisation. A narrative that completely ignores the  fisher-folk whose homes and livelihood are disrupted by such development. However, taking into account the countries history, I cannot deny the importance of such infrastructure in increasing connectivity, communication and possibility of travel/exploration. A platform enabling growth by facilitating greater ease of access and communication. For example it was the development of railways and roads by the British Empire connecting North-to-South India that allowed Mahatma Gandhi to tour the country and inspire Indians as a collective to fight for our independence. It is the continued development of transportation systems that allows people to migrate, network and expand their possibilities for growth. I wonder then is it about the narrative of roads as an enchantment or the question is who defines what development is? For if development is the possibilities of opportunities to expand for humanity and other species inhabiting the earth? is it positive sustainable development? or is the developmental agenda a showcase of modernity to grab votes and power? Or a little of both as taking from harry potter "neither can live while the other survives!"

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1) "Vendors, traders, and residents, he complained, believe that since they pay taxes they have no obligation to participate in waste management," Who 'should' be responsible for infrastructure maintenance, and why?

2) Can we explain, anthropologically, why “Government and all Ugandans were constantly embarrassed about the state of the city”? (This was a side comment, but it sparked my interest)

3) The "public servants... explained their roles in explicitly antipolitical terms, describing themselves as working in the “technical” wing
of the municipal government" - how far can politics and infrastructure be separated from each other, both practically, ideologically and psychologically?

- Sara (684725)

I think your second question, 'can we explain, anthropologically, why “Government and all Ugandans were constantly embarrassed about the state of the city”?', is especially interesting. I wonder if it is because individuals and states hold/compare themselves to norms, ideals and standards developed in the Global North in very specific cultural contexts which are then generalised. Is there a norm of what a city should be like/look like? Surely if it works for the citizens that is good enough? Why do we need classifications such as World City - is this not just a judgement call based on a specific set of arbitrary norms?
- Georgia (686396)

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“Water is one of the least finite resources in the world” (Swyngedouw, 2007), this paper contributes to the advocation that the water crisis is produced by inequalities of distribution. Tackling challenges of sanitation are less about infrastructures and are intertwined with gender inequalities, racism and ethno-religious politics. I found Mcfarlane’s concept of ‘peopling’ urban sanitation interesting as a lens for understanding the different perspectives and effects of sanitation. He proposes that bodies are not equally vulnerable, for instance, women face urinary tract and bowel infections from lack of access to toilets as well as higher risk of sexual harassment and violence using toilets and other areas such as railways and fields. That children too are extremely vulnerable from inadequate sanitation: experiencing malnutrition and dehydration; unable to go to school; stunting their growth. This paper shows that to better understand and respond to the sanitation crisis in the ‘global South’, researchers and practitioners should consider 5 relational aspects (people, city-life, things, space, distributions) to understand the multifarious nature of the issue and question social differences of power around gender and class.
-Rebecca Luff

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I came across these infrastructure  maps which I found interesting: https://maps.worldbank.org/?infraToolkit=globalLayer (675638, Anna)

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"the infrastructure is a living, breathing, leaking assemblage of more-than-human relations " (p.6)
I love this quote by the author which he uses to poetically represent the role hydraulic infrastructure has in forging relations between the state, public workers and residents.

Anand argues that this infrastructure represents a complex network which exists outside of the realm of how a "liberal" city like Mumbai performs. The other arguments Anand presents in his introduction also raise important questions about the power of water. How the control of water supply and access to a reliable supply can affect power relations between the state and citizens (as well as city workers and engineers representing the state).

Claire Bate-Roullin

Reaction to Claire:
I agree the quote is great. In McFarlane's paper he also emphasis how important this "relational approach" is so important to understand the diverse nature of power within the city, to help find useful solutions to this sanitation crisis beyond the technical.

- Natasha (675589)

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It seems that development projects that have capitalist aims are deemed good in the eyes of citizens if they are presented in a way that they will help the most people. This is why the citizens accept the roads and not the damns. Citizens have a distinct eagerness for development and see that even if some projects require neo liberal reform it will be worth it. However those in most support of it seem to be the middle class and it seems that even though it is deemed for the good for all citizens in the long run, there is not evidence to show how long it will take for the completion of the project and displacing some citizens at the expense new infrastructure in some cases seems unfair. The road symbolises hope for a better life and thus even the poor would give their last pound to be part of the development. However other projects such as the dam are perceived negatively even though there is more obvious infrastructural development of the dam and a larger chance of benefits. I agree that Individuals and communities engage with infrastructural development and cultural and historical norms surrounding power and exchange to reposition themselves in relation to the state. But it seems that different development initiatives are marketed in different ways, that aid government initiatives e.g. the road symbolises hope and the dam is perceived negatively. There is also a distinct bias towards the middle class and those able to participate in state. More participation means greater state benefits e.g. they don't get pushed out due to infrastructure this shows that although development may aid the developing country it continually instills class systems in a way that oppresses the poor.  Therefore privatization of infrastructural development in Ethiopia does not fit easily with conceptions of neoliberalism and the Government work does in fact imply a relationship between individuals who are differently positioned within a hierarchy of power extending beyond the workplace. The relations of power in the informal economy are generally isolated to the moment of exchange. 

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It seems that development projects that have capitalist aims are deemed good in the eyes of citizens if they are presented in a way that they will help the most people. This is why the citizens accept the roads and not the damns. Citizens have a distinct eagerness for development and see that even if some projects require neo liberal reform it will be worth it. However those in most support of it seem to be the middle class and it seems that even though it is deemed for the good for all citizens in the long run, there is not evidence to show how long it will take for the completion of the project and displacing some citizens at the expense new infrastructure in some cases seems unfair. The road symbolises hope for a better life and thus even the poor would give their last pound to be part of the development. However other projects such as the dam are perceived negatively even though there is more obvious infrastructural development of the dam and a larger chance of benefits. I agree that Individuals and communities engage with infrastructural development and cultural and historical norms surrounding power and exchange to reposition themselves in relation to the state. But it seems that different development initiatives are marketed in different ways, that aid government initiatives e.g. the road symbolises hope and the dam is perceived negatively. There is also a distinct bias towards the middle class and those able to participate in state. More participation means greater state benefits e.g. they don't get pushed out due to infrastructure this shows that although development may aid the developing country it continually instills class systems in a way that oppresses the poor.  Therefore privatization of infrastructural development in Ethiopia does not fit easily with conceptions of neoliberalism and the Government work does in fact imply a relationship between individuals who are differently positioned within a hierarchy of power extending beyond the workplace. The relations of power in the informal economy are generally isolated to the moment of exchange. 

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- Leanne

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I find the specific place roads occupy in the imaginative geographies of people and states really fascinating. Roads are equated with progress based not on the utility of specific projects and whether they are appropriate for the context they are being applied to but due to their association with 'progress' and 'modernity'. This is a really clear sign that infrastructure is not abstracted and utility based but deeply ideological. Mains refers to the special place roads occupy in the public imagination, I wonder if this is due to the hegemony of conceptions of 'development' that rest within the context of Northern ideals - such as World City standards.

- Georgia (686396)

Response to Georgia by Marie:
I was thinking about this too, and wondering whether this ideology of roads could not also have to do with the fact that the end result of road work is more tangible as an idea. We can easily imagine what the benefits of infrastructure work on roads would be, whereas pipes for gaz or technology for electricity is less 'obvious'?

Reponse to Georgia by Susie
I agree that the roads are illusory as much as physical. The description and analysis of road building by Harvey & Know extends beyond the relationships and identified by Mains between state, citizens and private enterprise into connections between nature, technology and the body and mind. The road embodies environmental, political, economic and social transition of the public, the landscape and the personal through the experience of its making. While the purpose of the road making has changed over time from linking rural to urban, creating means of extraction and expansion to linking nations, the need to build roads seems to remain a constant regardless or because of the difficulties they symbolise and their ability to enchant or create “illusory plausibility”.

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“It was one thing to have water infrastructure, yet quite another to have water.”

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“It was one thing to have water infrastructure, yet quite another to have water.”

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Anands Ethnography “Hydraulic City” follows “the iterative, discreet, and incremental ways in which marginal groups establish their lives in the city by attending to the fickle flow of water through municipal pipes.” Through the example of informal settlements and water infrastructure relations of power are highlighted “because the amount of water the city gets every day is finite and materialised by valve operations, to give one hydraulic zone more water is also to give another zone less.” Despite the upward mobility of Alka tai’s household infrastructure, the absence of water made her daily life rather difficult and highlights the privilege of "hydraulic citizenship". “It was one thing to have water infrastructure, yet quite another to have water.” This links to Sarag Kazira’s notes about hydraulic citizenship being incremental, intermittent and a reversible process.
(675638, Anna)

-Response to Anna by Rebecca
Like you, I found Anand’s illustration of the privilege of “hydraulic citizenship” really interesting - how the Premnagar residents are alienated by and from city politics, referred to as “they” an outsider and do not hold a “hydraulic citizenship”. This made me think about how anthropology has shown us that social and cultural differences are often grounds for the denial or removal of citizenship. That immigrants, minorities, the indigenous and the poor are treated as second class citizens who often do not have protection from the state.

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Like Georgia, I also think that infrastructure can be ideological. In this context I thought about how wider infrastructure can dominate and oppress. The Chinese government extended the infrastructure of high-speed train lines to Urumqui in Xinjiang, the very East of China. One could question whether this is to grant a minority in a remote corner of China, the Uyghurs, access to the rail network or whether it is to open up the already oppressed Uyghur province to the Han Chinese.

(675638, Anna)

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Anand's ethnography highlights the different forms of control at play in Mumbai. The municipal water department control the residents of Premnagar through keeping them in abjection, yet the residents have taken back some control over water supply, albeit in a costly, precarious and potentially dangerous (contaminated bore wells) way. The plumbers have control over both the water department and the residents (as well as the water supply itself). They discourage the residents from contacting the water engineers as the process is lengthy and uncertain, but by providing them an illegal short cut to water the residents are also tied to future maintenance contracts with the plumbers. Anand ends with a ray of hope for the residents with the water department considering a debt amnesty in exchange for a legal reconnection to the city's water system. However, the issues of prejudice and inequality would not disappear and therefore control over Premnagar would increase. Furthermore, it would not be a "linear narrative of progress" as it would not guarantee a stable, maintained system.

Also, in terms of global development goals/strategies, too much emphasis perhaps is placed on quantitative data e.g. how many people in the world have access to clean water, which does not take into account those who have poor/unreliable connection (despite the infrastructure being there) such as some of the Mumbai residents. Therefore more focus needs to be placed on qualitative data, such as from anthropological fieldwork.

(Hannah Abbott 695904)

I agree, reductive data on water supply is shown in this case to massivley underplay the nuance of the issue. Anands article does well to explain the subtle fluctuating nature of the power relations involved in something I believe we often de politicise in the global north. Ali

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and for those who know as little as me about Waste Water systems a 10 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HkRkCXPjzw&list=PL2XB_C-Z4FWW1bVRsKcsaa0cYxtXTJN7S&index=17&ab_channel=CityBeautiful (675638)

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"Yet as Brian Larkin (2013, 329) has recently noted, infrastructures are also things that exist apart from their purely technical functioning. They “need to be analyzed as concrete semiotic and aesthetic vehicles oriented to addressees.” That is, infrastructures do more than function or fail to realize the aspirations that established them. They put bodies in the path of things that hum, radiate, flicker, corrode, and lurch. They send them careening, changing their relationship to space and time. They raise the ambient envelopes of contemporary life, and they challenge us to understand the collective stakes of being emplaced within those envelopes. This is a productive challenge for anyone thinking through cities characterized by obsolescence—places in which broken infrastructures are common enough to be utterly unremarkable, even imperceptible."

=> this is just a very general thought and I am not sure if I misunderstand but the above quote immediately made me think of the arts and design, as abstract and actual representations of emplacement, temporality, movement and the space between humans and non humans (and by that infrastructure and entanglements of all kinds) are always present in discourses of both disciplines. In fine art in form of sculpture, concepts such as vanitas or for example photography (Urbexing, the fetish for derelict buildings that once embodied status and power) and in Design: in form of architecture and product design. It is never just about ‘technical functioning” (or aesthetics), but about relationships within spaces and living organisms. Maybe I am completely off track here, but I think this is another reason to argue for interdisciplinary approaches and the value of abstract / artistic thinking in the sciences. (Anna, 675638)

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When Crisis Strikes Divides Exacerbate!- Priyanka K.

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When Crisis Strikes Divides Exacerbate!- Priyanka K.

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The point made by McFarlane that stayed with me post reading the article is how the lack of access to sanitation infrastructure served as reminders to women in Mumbai especially from the lower SES of their unwanted-ness in the city. it made me think of how socially-constructed categories of hierarchies SES, education, gender, etc. seep into every aspect of human society, including access to sanitation infrastructure, then exacerbating repercussions on the physical and mental health of those at the bottom of the human-insisted hierarchies! It also made me think of how when crisis strikes, the above repercussions and divides get exacerbated. Recently I have been working with an NGO in Dharavi to record the habitants experiences during lockdown 2020! India as a country implemented one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. On top off it, the slum pockets in urban India (like Dharavi) were feared as contagion hubs for Covid-19 by nature of their infrastructure. For, with a million people living in cramped up 100 square-feet rooms, communal toilets and muddled by tiny streets; social distancing was a fantasy in a slum like Dharavi. Thus, the government took extra severe measures to prevent the spread of the virus. The slums were barricaded. It's inhabitants were left locked-up, dehumanized as carriers, living with no access to income, food or daily necessities.Thus, for the residents of Dharavi, their homes became a sort of ‘concentration-camps’, where they lived in confusion and fear of being infected by an intangible virus, they could not see nor understand and without knowledge of how they would find the next meal to feed their children or themselves! For they live on a hand-to-mouth existence! While the government health-workers did a fantastic job monitoring and tracking the spread of Covid-19. What of the other needs of people? What of humanity? The NGO workers reported, that women specially in this situation of no income, and in a culture of unjust gendered sacrifice even had to overlook their sanitary needs (access to sanitary napkins) and only communal toilets had further negative repercussions on their health. In the spirit of survival though, they live on! The concept of Right to Sanitation here makes me wonder if its time for anarchy! A dissolution of existing social-hierarchies?

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The Ethiopian experience of foreign investors/promoters into infrastructure reminds me of the story of oil being discovered in Uganda, some 20 years ago; the government and oil companies have considered no other option but to build a pipeline to the coast, to export the oil to the world markets, making no consideration for the massive and growing regional demand for petroleum products. Effectively there would be infrastructure to export oil, to import petroleum products, yet few people seriously considered just avoiding all that and refining the products in the country, creating local work and added value. So many oil companies working in those regions focus on exports and don’t consider local economies or local realities.
- Marie

respond by Bo Yang

Yes, we always should take politics into accounts when referring infrastructure. Depart from the within-citizenship inequality of accessing infrastructure on the one hand. It is also international inequality underpinned by politics or international relations on the other hand, as your case shown.

Response to Marie

This also reminds me of the case in Sierra Leone where Chinese investment is creating railroads to mine very expensive minerals that Sierra Leone does not have the means to mine themselves. With neoliberal development, a lot of the logic just appears to be ‘take what you can.’
Mains writes, “Although the hydroelectric projects were viewed with suspicion and doubt, there was a great deal of faith in the potential for roads to bring economic development.” This relates to the same issue. It appears that development has become tyrannical as the logic appears to be, so long as it brings ‘development’, all other forms of destruction are justified in the name of development and the rhetoric approach which was deeply inscribed in the construction of roads in this article.
Marten 686321

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The right to sanitation is more than just one for toilets.

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The right to sanitation is more than just one for toilets.

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I really enjoyed this piece, with McFarlane's “relational approach” you get to understand the diverse nature of the “Sanitation Crisis” within the city

The materiality & temporality of sanitation, the entangled relationship between
things, people and spaces, the informal and formal and ever changing processes of maintenance, management, accessibility and aspiration.

Macfarlan & movements like Mumbai’s Right to Pee argue that the right to sanitation is more than just one for toilets.“It’s a political statement’, the ‘freedom’ to move around and not be stuck indoors, to not ‘shut up and stay home’”

“the right to sanitation is, in practice, the right to city-life.” (McFarlane 2019)

- Natasha (675589)

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I really liked this article. Even if I agree with the comments above (it does seem like disenchantment, and it is lacking perspectives from the locals), I think it is a good reading to think about the non-tangible dimensions that development initiatives such as building roads have. Roads are not just means for physical mobility, but for social/class mobility. That is what makes the delay of the real construction so painful; after reading this text, you realize that what is delayed is the political integration and economic freedom of Peruvian rural communities. The same way that last week we talked about the ‘facelessness’ of the big companies behind the ‘development’ of poor countries (and therefore the facelessness of the ones that are harming them), I feel that there is also a tendency to forget the bigger implications or hidden meanings behind infrastructure. By remembering that a road is more than a road, it is the promise of better conditions of life at all levels (political, economic, social), we put into value and put pressure for it to be constructed, the ways it needs to respect the environment, etc. I have read government projects/promises of the construction of infrastructure in certain ‘forgotten’ places, but this is the first time I read about the endless meanings that infrastructure can have.  Laura Torres

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From coercive urban reconstruction through substantive state power, such as violence, to a relatively de-dramatic approach to making demolition possible through 'infrastructuralized' state power, the functioning of the infrastructure becomes an embodiment of the state power at the grassroots level in nuanced ways. And the account of the temporary disrepair of infrastructure helps us to improve our understanding of grassroots politics as a dynamic process and the centrality of state power in the context of Chinese politics, around which the effectiveness of laws, infrastructures, and local policies can be dynamic or even movement-based.
-Zhenyuan Fang

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https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/regional-integration/brief/belt-and-road-initiative

Despite knowing little about it, China's 'belt and road' infrastructural project fascinates me. I don't know how accurate the map is on that link; there seems to be so many graphic representation's of it.

Jacob Heath 685615

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I loved these two sections of Anand’s book, finding his use of water metaphors particularly enjoyable! He effectively demonstrated the more-than-material role infrastructure plays throughout Mumbai, being heavily intertwined with the world of politics, legality and ideology. The break down of the hydraulic water system in Mumbai represents the unstable relations between these realms, highlighting social schisms, particularly that of xenophobia from the engineers towards the Muslim community of Premnagar. I enjoyed how he showed lots of different viewpoints, from the engineers as well as from local people, along with incorporating his own analysis. A point I found particularly interesting was identifying how the workers in public utilities, in this case the engineers of the water system, legitimate their work through the language of private service provision, Patankar requiring residents to present copies of paid water bills prior to complaining about connections, seeing residents of the city “more as customers than citizens” (p. 198).  As Anand notes, I think this is an important aspect to look at during debates on privatisation.
Emma

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Von Schnitzler scrutinises the two sides of the coin in the prepaid meter project in South Africa as an ambivalent configuration of citizenship at the contradictory juncture of political liberation and economic liberalisation.

"Prepaid water meters can here be seen as the capillary ends of ‘cost recovery’ that turns basic needs into new spheres of accumulation"

She supports that inclusion in and connection to the state are contingent upon a successful performance of an ethic that fuses civic duty and entrepreneurial comportment. Therefore, "...the social’ and life itself, are to be recoded as objects of economic calculation".

Eleni 686974

Response to Eleni:
The enforced practice of saving water, highly controlled in its breakdown of how many body washes and toilet flushes per day, etc. is also gendered. Through limiting their flushing of the toilet, menstruating girls and women are forced to expose their menstrual bleeding - something that is already stigmatised. Furthermore, water for cleaning their hands and bodies is also to be limited and thus potentially a sanitation risk for them in particular. On top of this, the teenage girl interlocutors describe how the prepaid meter is "killing our grandmothers" as they are mostly dependent on their grandmothers' pensions. All of this adds to the fact that globally women are more likely than men to live in poverty, thus marginalised in so many ways.
(Hannah Abbott 685904)

Response to Hannah:

This is a really interesting point and a great demonstration of the asymmetrical impact of, and access to, public infrastructure. Maria 687047

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I really enjoyed the idea and magic of enchantment as a way of understanding the allure of a promise, and the emotional investment required in order for ‘authorities’ to gain support for something that is yet unknown and unrealised. It says a lot about how societies are managed and the psychological processes in play in the desire for progress. Even when suffering the disappointment of an unfulfilled promise, this only increases the desire for it, so the enchantment continues... As Harvey & Knox illustrate, the sellers of the dreams have the advantage, unless there is a decisive action to turn away from enchantment and give attention to the realities and costs of ‘making progress’.

Clare W 677349

Response to Clare by Brigid 685345

I liked your point about the psychological work infrastructure does. And the idea of magic, as if there is spell cast over the population.. This seems to me to be a far more dangerous form of infrastructure's role as a materialisation of state interests over a population. It would be fascinating to know more about the psychological aspects, as well as socio-cultural implications of infrastructure.

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I liked how Mains worked out the power relationships between corporations, the state and Jimma's citizens in Ethiopia. Foreign corporations lack transparency and reliability - Ethopians have fewer personal connections to them; there is lack of visibility when it comes to money flows: Instead, Ethopians assume the cash goes to  foreign corporation owners. More so, in these corporations, the provision of infrastructural services and jobs fluctuates at best - there are regular outages, people either lose their job or don't ever get one. Mains then goes on to demonstrate how the state is actually the more trusted employer: people have more personal connections to its state officials - which creates the impression of more transparency. Indeed, in Mains' account, the state is the somewhat more personable employer; and the job opportunities are more stable (collecting rocks for road building).

Still, I do think that Mains could have organised and formulated his theoretical argument much clearer! While he mentions and criticises multiple neoliberalisms (see for instance pages 6, 20, 21), and in fact, doesn't seem to find the -ism very useful as an anthropological concept to work with (he thinks that it "muddles important insights" especially when it comes to the relationality of different agents of power (21)), he doesn't quite define it. Instead, he moves on to suggest an alternative: Collier's topologies of power. In his view, it is more relational, and diverts the anthropological gaze to the network of social connections to understand developmental influence. I do see how Collier's concept works much better for what Mains wants to work out in his obersvations. But neoliberalism is an ideology, and topologies of power a concept. No wonder things get muddy - especially if you don't specify which form of neoliberalism(s) you are actually criticising !  (Julis, 634707)

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This is a great consideration to engage in, when it comes to the metaphoric materiality of infrastructure and the agents involved in its establishment. I would encourage you to read Antina Von Schnitzler's article where ultimately argues that the infrastructures and the technologies deployed for 'rescuing' economies, are invested with political content, while also materialising civilisation, and constructing subjectivities.

686974

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I really like what Chu calls the 'social life of stones' (pg. 356) and then figure 2, on pg. 357. There are some pretty old houses (as early as 18th century) where I live and during the summer last year, I noticed that many of them have ‘engravings’ in the bricks. Some engravings are in obscure places, whilst others in quite prominent ones. From what I can make out, the engravings – comprising of dates, initials and other similar stuff – are either self-references to the architects or construction workers who built them. In both the Chu reading and my village, to me this speaks to people being proud of the work they’ve done, and/or doing these engravings so as to not be alienated (in a Marxist and generic sense) from the product of their labour or from where they live – I don’t know how to express it, but it feels like a sort of act of marking/making community.

With this, it made me think of taggers/graffiti artists (and no doubt people have probably theorised over the following) and how what they do is very much like the engravings – humans trying to leave their mark in a place and make it their own and by doing so, marking/making a community. Tagging is done all types of banal and boring infrastructural things; think of trains, electricity power boxes or lampposts, all quite banal/boring but can have subjective and intersubjective significance to some people or be made significant through tagging. I think all this could be thought through how humans are dwellers (in the Heideggerian* and general sense) and so try to humanise these rather banal, boring things such as infrastructure and in doing so, make themselves and/or their world significant and ‘home’.

*I could be stretching Heidegger too far here/misinterpreting, so correct me if I’m wrong :-)

Jacob Heath 685615

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I do think that cleanliness and orderliness - and the embarrassment that comes with a lack thereof - is not only created by a comparison to "the developed North''. That comparison may inspire a very particular kind, manifestation or architecture of cleanliness and orderliness of the city, but I'd like to think that there is also a need for cleanliness and some form of order is shared across humanity. To explain this sentiment, which I believe "embarrassment" is, I'd turn to Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger, with an understanding of dirt as "matter out of place". Surely there are social, cultural, religious explanations that could provide interesting insights here.  634707, Julis

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There are some ideas in this paper that are really interesting.  So Foucault meets Tsing  - the relationship between sovereignty and governmentality meets patchiness becomes visible as the discourse of cleanliness, function, order, entrepreneurialism, beautification - the 'functionalist totalising' aspects in Foucault, as Doherty underlines - become eroded with multiple acts of encroachment (also from last term) but also, decay of the structures of cleansing, as the 'patchiness of anthropocene' comes back in.  I really like the way this paper lends itself to several layers of theoretical interpretation which in fact all come together. Entanglements,  as it were / Emanuela

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I feel instructive when regarding hydraulic infrastructure's materiality in processes of transforming both material, social, political beings of lifeworld. Materiality of infrastructure here, more referring to pipe and others, but I want more about materiality of water. How physical shape materiality of water so that connecting those transformation in relation to ecological environments of a deeper extent.

Water possess its own flow, direction and formation. Infrastructure want to tame water in service of city development. Whether it has triggered more ecological inequality, or social inequality in a ecological way?

Bo Yang

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Yours is an interesting comment as it is true that the idea of 'clean' as a value is quite widespread. However I wonder whether it is actually a lot more 'relative' as we are led to believe - and here I confess, I have not read Mary Douglas so I may lack some of the elements, but the discourse around cleanliness and modernisation seems to me a lot more driven than innate, and of course - part of public discourse because it looks like the 'western' folks would want it, as we have seen a lot during the previous term. In fact, I think the idea of order is very western (and specifically christian-derived). Again, this is my gut feeling and not necessarily anthropological based, but my impression is that in non-western cultures, it is easier to find examples where 'purity' is entirely relational, so it is defined with respect to duties of the person to the community, and not as idealised virtue as is for western folks. So an example of reflexive research would be to try and understand what lies behind these concepts of cleanliness in different societies.

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"The aim, as Thomas Lemke points out, is to achieve ‘congruence ... between a responsible and moral individual and an economic rational individual’." (p901) Did this happen? Arguably so. In the context of infrastructural projects, we can draw a parallel by intuitively assigning the "economic rational" label to the private institutions, and the "responsible/moral" to the public ones. That is for my intuition at least. We may recognize that the funding of infrastructure is twofold. For once, the government can decide where it conducts projects, and also private money establishes its presence at other sites. In my opinion, public money tends to favor territories which are also favored by private institutions. Usually the capital is where most new infrastructures emerge, not at the areas where it is in more dire need. Why is this happening? Why doesn't governments recognize that they are just helping to compound the effects of urbanization, while effectively neglecting any region which does not receive too much attention from private interest. Private interest is already out of the equation for development purposes, as the forces of economics will not ever bend towards areas of low demand. I suggest that opportunity could be way more balanced, if governments would start setting example by concentrating their funds on the territories lagging behind. The advancement of these regions could later on attract private money  as well, which would most likely create more jobs there. The increased supply of jobs would increase wages and overall purchasing power, which would attract even more private institutions, as the spectrum of needs with regards to inhabitants widens. I think this could start a pretty favorable cycle which propels itself further on.

Andrew

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I found his use of the 'Work in Progress' sign that never comes down as a metaphor compelling. It raises many questions about what progress we are working for and why, whether that work will every achieve its objectives, when is the work 'done', and like roadworks always in progress, what other challenges is it creating in its path.

I also found his evaluation of KCAA's social media strategy and use of language / messaging interesting, recognising how words shape ('laundering the project') and are shaped by public discourse, aspirations and expectations. -Karen

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Having read through this a couple of times, I fully agree with the author's premise that 'Human waste provides a powerful lens on the city.'

There are a number of themes explored, but I found the most convincing and powerful arguments to be those around gender. Limited access to sanitation facilities not only reflects the lowly status of some women in society, but re-enforces the stereotypes upon which that status is assumed. In addition to the threats to their immediate safety, this lack of access also leads to long-term health problems, creating a cycle of inequality that can be at least partially attributed to the gendered nature of infrastructure provision.

Will (676615)

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‘In this figuration, drawn from an urban margin reeling with both political possibility and neglect, infrastructure is not a stable ground but an active political matter. More immanent than transcendent, rather than a mark of political authority already stabilized, Wastelandia’s infrastructure, built of and on the body, is a means of popular political substantiation’

I really like this quote and find that this interpretation of infrastructure is particularly useful for anthropologists. Bringing infrastructure to life, demonstrating its political and social dimensions, as well as exploring its interaction with the material body, gives the arena of common spaces a dynamism and productive tension which is bound to be informative as to the context within which these spaces find themselves. Chaflin provides us with a wonderful model through which wider anthropological analysis can take place through the lens of infrastructure.

Maria - 687047

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‘Hydropower and road construction projects demonstrate that Jimma residents perceive the Ethiopian state as simultaneously contracting and expanding’. There is a lot scepticism regarding hydroelectric projects but a contrasting enthusiasm about the development of roads. Where the former is related to state secrets and to only benefit a few the road is perceived to bring change and modernity for everyone. Mains repeatedly states that the construction of roads will cause people to leave their neighbourhoods and move to one infested with misquotes, away from the city. The residents are happy to move away from their livelihoods because they believe the long-term benefits of employment stability will outweigh the consequences. This is a contrasting view to what I know as gentrification in the UK, those that are obliged to move do not see ‘long term plan’ of the city instead they hold bitter and resentment towards the governance. Furthermore, the road development symbolises hope and capitalistic development for the citizens however I wonder how equally the benefits will be distributed upon completion and if it will ever be 100% complete?

Mah 644393

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Even though I acknowledge that water may be nonexistent or scarce in certain parts of the territory mentioned in the source due to the state not being able to fund it, I still oppose the police officer's attitude towards the mentioned inhabitants. He talks about them as if they deserved water being cut off from certain areas due to their non-conforming behavior. I do not think anyone should judge ones' actions who are lacking supply of something so essential as water. I do not think he should talk down on those who "do not pay for water, just steal it", they are probably not paying since they really do not have any money to offer in exchange. We should keep in mind that virtue diminishes amidst danger and scarcity, and do not judge anyone for it, paying a tribute to us being a perceiver on the other side of the fence this time. That being said, the root cause is the government not providing enough funding for every area to be supplied. I do not think that water should be ever so far out on the priority list that funding cannot cover it. Moreover, I recommend water not ever being transformed into a commodity, the supply of which is dependent on purchasing power. Since that would be basically slow-paced mass murder by thirst.

Andrew

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I really enjoyed how Anand problematised the category of citizenship by showing that it is actually a process and ambiguous, rather than an immutable a priori determined fact. Speaking from my position, that is, a white, German/Portuguese, heterosexual, middleclass male living in London, I have experienced citizenship as a right that I was born with, and thus, something that I take for granted. In this way, the state and legal systems act as a system of justice and rights for me. However, Anand makes clear in many ways, and for me most innovatively through infrastructure, that citizenship does not mean the same thing for all people.
Anand shows that citizenship is an iterative and contested process and performance between the state and its subjects for the humans in his ethnography. Their negotiation capacities are shown to be largely contingent on cultural, ethnic, and political matters. Moreover, the degree of their citizenship is also broken up in many ways. In this ethnography, there is a particular focus on “hydraulic citizenship”. This reveals that although those in the ethnography are formally understood as citizens, they do not feel themselves to be appreciated as fully citizens given their deprivation of water, and this, ultimately also reflects the government's hierarchisation of citizenship.
This remind me of the idea of the abyssal line/colonial difference that reveals how the same institution can have contradicting effects depending one’s positionality and relation to it. In this sense, the state can be understood as a form of oppression rather than a source of freedom for those who are not ‘hydraulic citizens’ and thus, not full citizens.
Marten 686321

Response from Karen: I also found his exploration of the concept of citizenship through the lens of infrastructure impactful - that some are viewed as 'more deserving subjects of state authority'. I was particularly struck by the view that water citizenship is 'not a single event' but incremental and intermittent, something that takes a lot of work to become and maintain. Like you, my citizenship is something I've unfortunately taken for granted and not always viewed fully.

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Chaflin’s article really opened up my eyes to perceiving things very differently, may that be mundane life activities and products that we use and how it draws out a whole cycle which once again leads to gaining authority and monetary power. We see how these man-made artifacts are also subsidiaries to the growth in an individual’s life, like portrayed in the infrastructure of the toilet and how the owner technically has certain control over the resident’s life. The way she ties in the building of these infrastructures and man-made objects as building blocks, and metaphorically a path that builds up to political power and dominance.
Enakshi
(685915)

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I really enjoyed how Anand unpacks citizenship as a process between the state and its citizens wherein citizenship is not a fixed category but political subjectivity in constant flux depending on how the state materializes. I find Anna's insight on the disconnect between upward mobility and 'hydraulic citizenship' interesting as it reiterates Anand's argument on the hierarchical access to services in Mumbai. I also find Marten's emphasis on positionality and colonial administration interesting in the sense that the state differentiates in treating its subjects. By thinking about 'citizenship' as a process that reproduces imaginaries and determines the present (p. 13), infrastructure extend our understanding of political subjectivity and control.
Moustafa

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Infrastructures attack and people fight back

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Infrastructures attack and people fight back

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When infrastructures attack, people fight back and show that they are never afraid to protest for what they know is right. Chou’s ethnography from Nanhou, one of the oldest and most famous streets in the fast-developing city Fuzhou, encapsulates the tragedy of gentrification and development towards a globalized capitalist society, but also paints a great picture of community cohesion and resilience in the face of state plans and legal threats.

Development unfolds globally at a rapid rate and it endangers plenty of people. Communities at large are being deported or simply eradicated in the name of ‘progress’ and market expansion, with little to no consequence to the state actors who proceeded with their infamous acts. In the particular example, Chou highlights the story of locals whose houses are being demolished to make way for new construction work. People who have built their own houses and have lived in them for their entire lives, end up having little to no power in stoping the government from carrying out its demolition projects. Despite their apparent powerlessness, locals still uphold a spirit of righteousness. When state officials talk in legislative terms, so do the citizens, who are well versed in this type of speech; when state officials employ violence to further their plans, so do the people- and they do it more creatively, as Chou shows on page 361, fig. 5 (by using demarcation marks around their homes, they threaten to attack anyone passing them with feces and urine bottled up and stacked up in huge piles next to the marks).

I found it extremely fascinating to read about this infrastructure disaster in China because it reminds me of the stories my parents have told me about their childhoods under a communist government. Similarly, in a village named Vinerea, Romania, my grandmother had been deported from her house because of national interests, or more precisely, because the my grandma’s brother sang the national hymn at a wedding, which was illegal at that time. They had been evicted  with no warning, from the land they had owned for as long as they have existed, and there was little to nothing that my grandmas family was able to do at that time, as everything was taken away from them and they were also not allowed to return back to society under normal circumstances (grandma was denied the right to study, her parents the rights to work). Despite that, my grandmother, just as the citizens of Nanhou, had incredible resilience and had fought in court for her rights for the rest of her life. Luckily, she was able to receive a pension as a deportee (and so will my father now, as her heir) but the loss of their life-long home (farm) has left a huge whole in her life. It would be interesting to do some further research on this, as I think that her health was affected then irreversibly. She ended up having Alzheimer’s and her fixation was always to return back to her home in Vinerea.

Ioana Illes 677134

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I find the use of this concept of enchantment and it’s exploration to be a very useful approach to understanding infrastructure’s symbolic and discursive power. Harvey and Knox form a convincing argument for infrastructure as a mirror that reflects expectations, hopes, and vision for itself in an anticipated future. This questions whether the importance of infrastructural projects lie in their fulfilment or in their aspirations, and hints at layers of socio-political and natural elements involved in said projects.

In response to Ioana illes on Chu

I found your personal anecdote of your post infrastructures attack and people fight back incredibly interesting and helpful in digesting Chu’s paper. Often times I think in academia we speak of progress and development with little thought to its repercussions or to its definitions. Thank you for sharing

Jakob Lewis

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I found Mains’ use of the theory of 'the gift' very interesting. In this context, roads are seen as a gift from the state, in reciprocity to the citizen’s faith and financial support through fundraisers. This creates an ongoing relationship with the state, placing an obligation on the state to reciprocate. This brought various questions to my mind. What if these projects end in disenchantment, if the gift is not returned? If the roads are left unfinished, and people do not receive employment? And if this occurs, will the people continue to see these infrastructural projects as state projects? Do the people really desire the gift, or rather the relationship that the gift establishes? (Edda 667994)

Response to Edda:
I think the Harvey & Knox article sits alongside Mains to demonstrate the overriding power of enchantment in the face of unfulfilled promises. It seems that  sins are not only forgiven but expected on the road to progress. As you point out, there is an active reciprocity of obligation in play between State and citizen, which is complex and often includes foreign third parties. Like the idea of enchantment, Mains highlights the 'values concerning relations of power and exchange'.
Clare W 677349

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Does infrastructure order people or do people order infrastructure?

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Does infrastructure order people or do people order infrastructure?

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Chalfin’s article, like Anand’s, argues that man-made objects are not simply material substances but have a ‘politics’ and social meaning. One of her key points is how the private owner of a toilet facility indirectly and directly controls the bodies of the residents through their use of the infrastructure he built. He does this through appropriating their bodily waste, by turning it into methane which then becomes his property. Although this creates another asset for him, I question whether this causes ‘further dependence’ (p.664) of the users upon the infrastructure? Why would the users care where their bodily waste goes? Especially if it is used as energy for cooking and electricity within the facility. Given that Chalfin says this ‘non-human material’ gains agency (p.665), could this not also mean- by extension- that the bodies it came from, the residents, also have agency over this infrastructure?
Brigid (685345)

Response to Brigid
I also found it very interesting how infrastructures are seen as political projects (in this case quite informal, something occurring beyond state control). In terms of M's political control, and him being portrayed as  the potential 'Leviathan' of the toilet complex, I wondered whether his aim was to exert control over the bodies of his customers, or whether he truly just wanted to improve the quality of their lives, as he himself noted. At the same time, the space was presented as one of interlocking/ intertwining forms of agency, as the customers also constructed their own infrastructures. As you said, the residents were also able to negotiate with M's political authority, which may not be the case in more formal state infrastructural projects.

A quote I thought illustrated these dynamics interestingly:

"Infrastructure exerts a force – not simply in the materials and energies it avails, but

also the way it attracts people, draws them in, coalesces and expends their capacities.

People work on things to work on each other, as these things work on them."

- Edda 667994