IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v55y2018i4p720-732.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thinking through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations

Author

Listed:
  • Mary Lawhon

    (University of Oklahoma, USA)

  • David Nilsson

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)

  • Jonathan Silver

    (University of Sheffield, UK)

  • Henrik Ernstson

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; and The University of Manchester, UK)

  • Shuaib Lwasa

    (Makerere University, Uganda)

Abstract

Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated broad differences between Northern and Southern cities, and deconstructed urban theory derived from experiences of the networked urban regions of the Global North. This includes critiques of the universalisation of the historically–culturally produced normative ideal of universal, uniform infrastructure. In this commentary, we first introduce the notion of ‘heterogeneous infrastructure configurations’ (HICs) which resonates with existing scholarship on Southern urbanism. Second, we argue that thinking through HICs helps us to move beyond technological and performative accounts of actually existing infrastructures to provide an analytical lens through which to compare different configurations. Our approach enables a clearer analysis of infrastructural artefacts not as individual objects but as parts of geographically spread socio-technological configurations: configurations which might involve many different kinds of technologies, relations, capacities and operations, entailing different risks and power relationships. We use examples from ongoing research on sanitation and waste in Kampala, Uganda – a city in which service delivery is characterised by multiplicity, overlap, disruption and inequality – to demonstrate the kinds of research questions that emerge when thinking through the notion of HICs.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary Lawhon & David Nilsson & Jonathan Silver & Henrik Ernstson & Shuaib Lwasa, 2018. "Thinking through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 720-732, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:55:y:2018:i:4:p:720-732
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098017720149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098017720149
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098017720149?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ananya Roy, 2009. "The 21st-Century Metropolis: New Geographies of Theory," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 819-830.
    2. Govind Gopakumar, 2014. "Experiments and Counter-Experiments in the Urban Laboratory of Water- Supply Partnerships in India," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 393-412, March.
    3. Geels, Frank W., 2002. "Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1257-1274, December.
    4. Rheinländer, Thilde & Samuelsen, Helle & Dalsgaard, Anders & Konradsen, Flemming, 2010. "Hygiene and sanitation among ethnic minorities in Northern Vietnam: Does government promotion match community priorities?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(5), pages 994-1001, September.
    5. Jochen Monstadt & Sophie Schramm, 2017. "Toward The Networked City? Translating Technological ideals and Planning Models in Water and Sanitation Systems in Dar es Salaam," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 104-125, January.
    6. Malini Ranganathan, 2014. "Paying for Pipes, Claiming Citizenship: Political Agency and Water Reforms at the Urban Periphery," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 590-608, March.
    7. Colin McFarlane & Renu Desai & Steve Graham, 2014. "Informal Urban Sanitation: Everyday Life, Poverty, and Comparison," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 104(5), pages 989-1011, September.
    8. Jennifer Robinson, 2002. "Global and world cities: a view from off the map," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 531-554, September.
    9. Henrik Ernstson & Mary Lawhon & James Duminy, 2014. "Conceptual Vectors of African Urbanism: 'Engaged Theory-Making' and 'Platforms of Engagement'," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(9), pages 1563-1577, September.
    10. Furlong, Kathryn, 2014. "STS beyond the “modern infrastructure ideal”: Extending theory by engaging with infrastructure challenges in the South," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 139-147.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lejla H Pihljak & Maria Rusca & Cecilia Alda-Vidal & Klaas Schwartz, 2021. "Everyday practices in the production of uneven water pricing regimes in Lilongwe, Malawi," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(2), pages 300-317, March.
    2. Jonathan Silver & Simon Marvin, 2017. "Powering sub-Saharan Africa’s urban revolution: An energy transitions approach," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 847-861, March.
    3. Idalina Baptista, 2019. "Electricity services always in the making: Informality and the work of infrastructure maintenance and repair in an African city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 510-525, February.
    4. Shaun Smith, 2019. "Hybrid networks, everyday life and social control: Electricity access in urban Kenya," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(6), pages 1250-1266, May.
    5. Nilsson, David & Blomkvist, Pär, 2021. "Is the self-read water meter a pro-poor innovation? Evidence from a low-income settlement in Nairobi," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Blomkvist, Pär & Nilsson, David & Juma, Benard & Sitoki, Lewis, 2020. "Bridging the critical interface: Ambidextrous innovation for water provision in Nairobi's informal settlements," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    7. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.
    8. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Understanding Urban Processes in Flint, Michigan: Approaching ‘Subaltern Urbanism’ Inductively," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 791-804, May.
    9. Tim Bunnell & Daniel P. S. Goh & Chee-Kien Lai & C. P. Pow, 2012. "Introduction: Global Urban Frontiers? Asian Cities in Theory, Practice and Imagination," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2785-2793, October.
    10. Mary Lawhon & Gloria Nsangi Nakyagaba & Timos Karpouzoglou, 2023. "Towards a modest imaginary? Sanitation in Kampala beyond the modern infrastructure ideal," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(1), pages 146-165, January.
    11. Christine Hentschel, 2015. "Postcolonializing Berlin and The Fabrication of The Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 79-91, January.
    12. Federica Natalia Rosati & Luisa Moretto & Jacques Teller, 2020. "An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/314020, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Willem Paling, 2012. "Planning a Future for Phnom Penh: Mega Projects, Aid Dependence and Disjointed Governance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2889-2912, October.
    14. Gordon MacLeod & Martin Jones, 2011. "Renewing Urban Politics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2443-2472, September.
    15. Youssef Henein & Thi-Thanh-Hien Pham & Sarah Turner, 2019. "A small upland city gets a big make-over: Local responses to state ‘modernity’ plans for Là o Cai, Vietnam," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(16), pages 3432-3449, December.
    16. David Ockwell & Joanes Atela & Kennedy Mbeva & Victoria Chengo & Rob Byrne & Rachael Durrant & Victoria Kasprowicz & Adrian Ely, 2019. "Can Pay-As-You-Go, Digitally Enabled Business Models Support Sustainability Transformations in Developing Countries? Outstanding Questions and a Theoretical Basis for Future Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Fuenfschilling, Lea & Binz, Christian, 2018. "Global socio-technical regimes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 735-749.
    18. Tom Percival & Paul Waley, 2012. "Articulating Intra-Asian Urbanism: The Production of Satellite Cities in Phnom Penh," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2873-2888, October.
    19. Thinphanga, Pakamas & Friend, Richard, 2024. "Thailand’s policy vacuum: Land use planning as sites of negotiation and contestation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    20. Dekel, Tomer & Meir, Avinoam & Alfasi, Nurit, 2019. "Formalizing infrastructures, civic networks and production of space: Bedouin informal settlements in Be'er-Sheva metropolis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 91-99.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:55:y:2018:i:4:p:720-732. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.