Infrastructure, Power & Protest

Course Description

From railroads to communication networks, water pipes and electricity wires, and technologies of security and extraction, everyday physical infrastructures and technologies are central to how we function, but easy to ignore. Yet these systems are not neutral, but deeply political. This course explores how power and privilege operate through infrastructure and technology, and how these are essential to the constitution of new political terrains , with an emphasis on cases from Africa and South Asia. We will begin by approaching infrastructures as networked systems that both shape and are shaped by social life, global economic and political shifts, and the legacies of colonialism, Cold War politics, and early 20th century projects of development and modernization especially in global south countries. We will then explore contemporary sites of struggles in relation to infrastructures, such as the technopolitics of oil, technologies of piracy, and infrastructures of security and “preparedness”. Finally, the course will examine infrastructure failure, including both the “ordinary breakdowns” of infrastructure in cities of the global south and often dramatic infrastructure failures in the aftermath of disasters or war. Readings will be interdisciplinary, drawing primarily on science and technology studies, anthropology, political theory and geography.