Infrastructure as Decay and the Decay of Infrastructure

Watch the recording of the seminar here
 

Consider a brand-new highway extension, or the latest high-speed metro line connecting a newly established neighbourhood with the city center. Then imagine a crumbling pavement, potholes in the road, or aging public transport systems prone to frequent breakdowns. All infrastructures require maintenance, otherwise they decay.

At this webinar, anthropologist Akhil Gupta conceptualizes infrastructures as both creating and experiencing decay. They are the causes of destruction because of the despoliation that must occur for them to exist as well as for the consequences that ensue from their use. But infrastructures experience decay themselves in that they are subject to dissolution, degradation, breakdown, and change. Much more of our attention is drawn to the creativity and ingenuity of construction and design than to what is seen as “mere” maintenance. Such a view is entirely mistaken: maintenance is that critical third space between construction and decay, between building and degradation, and between the future and the past. However, maintenance does not always serve noble ends; it may serve to exacerbate existing inequalities or perhaps even create new vectors of inequality.

This is the second webinar in the Infrastructure as analytical approach webinar series where the potential and implications of infrastructure analysis is explored through state-of-the art talks by leading scholars.

Speakers
Akhil Gupta, Professor in Anthropology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Nauja Kleist, Senior Researcher, DIIS

Akhil Gupta is Professor of Anthropology at UCLA and President of the American Anthropological Association. He has published extensively on infrastructure, the state, development and postcolonialism.

Programme
17.00-17.05      Welcome and introduction, Nauja Kleist
17.05-17.25      Infrastructure as Decay and the Decay of Infrastructure, Akhil Gupta
17.25-18.00      Q&A - chair Nauja Kleist
 

Recorded on Wednesday 7 October 2020, 17.00-18.00 on Zoom