Guma, P.K. orcid.org/0000-0001-8511-5664 (2020) Incompleteness of urban infrastructures in transition: scenarios from the mobile age in Nairobi. Social Studies of Science, 50 (5). pp. 728-750. ISSN 0306-3127
Abstract
Work in policy and research circles tends to depict urban infrastructural heterogeneity as synonymous with failure or brokenness. Inherent in this tendency is the often-subtle expectation that infrastructures should evolve as do their counterparts elsewhere, or in a linear trajectory from less complete to more complete arrangements. This article opposes such completist lures and inclinations. I recuperate the notion of incompleteness as a constitutive feature and explanatory category for urban infrastructures that, while diverging from so-called norms and ideals, cannot be described as failed or broken. I argue that, rather than devising universalizing solutions to processes of infrastructural heterogeneity, it is perhaps better to see infrastructures as emergent, shifting and thus incomplete. I make this case looking at three successive infrastructures in Nairobi: the Simu ya Jamii kiosk, the M-Pesa stall and the M-Pesa platform. I examine these infrastructures not simply as raw materials or empirical conduits, but as the very starting point in theorizing urban infrastructures from the South. Ultimately, this study not only opens up a vital frame for situated analysis and understanding of urban infrastructures in transition, it also adds to and extends STS analytical frames into non-Northern contexts.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is properly attributed. |
Keywords: | African technologies; heterogeneity; incompleteness; mobile age; urban infrastructure; Built Environment; Kenya |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Research Institutes Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Dec 2023 15:52 |
Last Modified: | 01 Dec 2023 15:52 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0306312720927088 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:205842 |