In this research strand we recognise the socio-technical nature of infrastructure in making the city. While the networks of roads, electricity, water, sanitation and housing for example, are all provided through the technology of road, pipes, cables and wires, they are also socially regulated, and in many parts of the world, these supplies are provided through a mix of human and technical effort. We are particularly interested in how these socio-technical materials of city making are frequently employed as tools to exacerbate existing social difference and perpetuate marginalisation, contributing to broader processes of exclusion.
Research projects
Research projects currently being undertaken on this theme include:
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Learning between stakeholders: energy innovation for low-income housing in the Western Cape, South AfricaThis interdisciplinary research project, funded by the British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Grants, explores community engagement in energy governance (particularly for energy access and innovation) in low-income urban settlements of South Africa. |
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Infrastructural Citizenship: Spaces of Urban Life in Cape Town, South AfricaThis research project, funded by the Cambridge Humanities Research Group, explores the relationship between infrastructure and citizenship in cities of the global South. |
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Infrastructures of life in the urban ageThis project examines the contemporary mainstream framing of urban poverty, and the counter-narratives of inclusion and empowerment. This work is both conceptual and empirical, with the former focusing on contrasting arts of the politics of inclusion, and the latter focusing on attempts by the poor themselves to build housing and infrastructure (in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil, with further work planned in Kenya and India). |