RGS-IBG 2020 : Transformative infrastructure in urban Africa

Session organisers: Barbara Lipietz, Daniel Oviedo and Jesse Harber (UCL/SOAS)

This session intends to bring together interdisciplinary research on the use of infrastructure—understood in the broadest sense—to effect broader social, economic, and political transformations in Africa. Infrastructure – its absence, under-development or inadequacy – has been identified in both academic and policy circles as a key factor of African underdevelopment. In turn, an important literature extols the role of infrastructure as an important developmental ‘fix’ for the continent. However, the ‘hardwiring of Africa’ approach is not without its critiques. Infrastructure never performs a neutral ‘developmental’ role, but rather represents an intervention, deliberate or inadvertent, into its social, economic, and political context. Papers in this session will analyse infrastructure projects in this light, as “transformative” (however defined).

We invite papers that engage with multiple forms of infrastructure, from ‘hardwiring’ to digital and financial infrastructure, including perspectives that develop the concept of ‘people as infrastructure’ or governance infrastructures,through quantitative and qualitative methods applied to the African continent. We wish to interrogate the notion of an infrastructural fix in the highly diverse contexts of Africa; as well as to explore the governance, regulatory, financial and political aspects of transformative infrastructure in place. We welcome contributions that speak from the perspective of secondary cities or peri-urban areas across the African continent (including northern Africa); as well as historical and comparative work.

Possible topics for the session include:

Regional, cross-border, and global infrastructures as relevant to urban Africa
Policies and practices representing an attempt to “leapfrog” traditional infrastructures
Experimental or otherwise novel governance or regulatory arrangements around infrastructure
“Smart cities” and the biopolitics of infrastructure
Private, splintering, or “pirate” infrastructures of the rich or poor
Socio-cultural infrastructures and institutions
Material, social, financial and digital infrastructures beyond traditional sectors (e.g. mobility, housing, energy, and water)
“People as infrastructure” and its transformations over time
Infrastructure projects with an explicit or implicit agenda for governance reform
Governance of infrastructure and the influence of local, regional and national borders

Informations pratiques :

We seek submissions from colleagues at any stages of their academic career, including PhD candidates. This panel is part of a broader project aimed at developing an open access edited volume on Transformative Infrastructures in Africa, with UCL Press.

Timeline:

• Deadline for submission of abstracts: 10th February 2020
• The session convenors will communicate the RGS response as soon as informed by the organisers after the 14th February session proposal deadline
• Deadline for reduced rate ('early-bird') registrations: 12th June 2020
• RGS-IBG International conference: Tuesday 1st- Friday 4th September 2020

All interested in contributing to this session, please e-mail an abstract not exceeding 250 words, with title, names, affiliations and email addresses of all authors to: b.lipietz@ucl.ac.uk , daniel.oviedo@ucl.ac.uk and jesse_harber@soas.ac.uk