The concept of infrastructure draws attention to as-yet-unseen synergies between technology, culture, and materiality. What does this concept have to offer environmental anthropology? While we can safely say that infrastructures shape the natural world, they surely do so in ways particular to their times and places. This Engagement blog thematic series seeks to shed light on the heterogeneity of infrastructures—their forms and effects—as seen through the anthropology of the environment. What might the particularity of infrastructures, including their materials, their scales, or the ecologies in which they work, tell us about the human condition? For a sub-field long interested in the organization of socio-natural systems, from Balinese subaks to the Nuer rangelands, what is new about the infrastructure concept? This thematic series engages with those questions, with commentaries by Ashley Carse and Bettina Stoetzer.
Series Posts:
Part I
Between Obsolescence and Necessity: The Abiding Nature of Dhalao Infrastructures in Urban India
by Aman Luthra
Natural Infrastructures: Sediment, Science, and the Future of Southeast Louisiana
by Monica Barra
Tactics of Power and Empowerment in Knowledge-Making Infrastructures
by Kirk Jalbert
On Rust
by Stephanie McCallum
Silo as System: Infrastructural Interventions into the Political Economy of Wheat
by Ateya Khorakiwala
An “Ecological Path” in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park: On the Reflexivity of Oil Infrastructure:
by Peter Taber
Commentary:
The Anthropology of the Built Environment: What Can Environmental Anthropology Learn from Infrastructure Studies (and Vice Versa)?
by Ashley Carse
Part II
Choosing Paths, Not Roads
by Madhuri Karak
In the Sand: Water, Land, and Infrastructure in Informality
by Angela Storey
Walking over Water: Piers, Docks, and Coastal Infrastructure
by Barbara Quimby
Excavating the Chesapeake: Exploring the Intersecting Geological, Political, and Technical Layers that Constitute a Watershed
by Jeremy Trombley
Infrastructural Recursions: Volcanic Landscapes, Instability and Energy Production
by James Maguire
Commentary:
Infrastructure – Peripheral Visions and Bodies that Matter: A Commentary
by Bettina Stoetzer
Read the original call for posts here.
Engagement 