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Paper Short Abstract:

This paper analyzes the co-constitution of infrastructures in the Dominican-Haitian borderland. Building on the concept of people as infrastructure, this paper highlights the agency of subaltern people in infrastructural works and discusses their intended (in)visibilities.

Paper Abstract:

Since its independence, the Dominican state has been using infrastructural projects as a means to differentiate itself from its neighboring state Haiti. Currently, under the government of president Luis Abinader, a new wave of state building through infrastructure can be observed. People living in the Dominican-Haitian borderland suffer heavily from the every-day structural violence by the Dominican state and its demarcation efforts as they have been depending on mutual economic exchange since colonial times.

In this paper I build upon AbdouMaliq Simone’s concept of "people as infrastructure" in order “to render people’s actions as technical”. Drawing on the data of my 6-months ethnographic field work in the Haitian-Dominican Borderland I argue that the socio-economic marginalized borderland population strategically creates social networks across state borders based on a place-specific form of creating “kin” and thus “family”. Such Lakou networks safeguard the circulation of people and goods in a particular manner even in times of crisis and closed state borders. I claim that people as infrastructure, therefore, not only fill gaps when state infrastructures fail, but also create alternative infrastructures in order to contest and circumvent state projects and borders.

A focus on the entanglement of infrastructures can contribute to a better understanding on the co-constitution of infrastructures. It further sheds light on the intended (in)visibilities of infrastructural projects. Such an approach can bring to the fore the agency of subaltern people and their potential to create barely perceivable alternative infrastructural works.