The governance of environmental crises as states of exception further spoils an already stigmatised terrestrial. Through ethnography, I provide an alternative horizon of dark infrastructures of care that feature interdependencies and a precarious autonomy through the affective labor of volunteers.
Long abstract:
Environmental disasters and climate crises have been construed as exceptional events that require a governance of surveillance and control. Such practices of exception governance further stigmatise terrestrial territories that do not necessarily adhere to hegemonic ways of living. Embracing the (arti)fact that the climate calamity cannot so much be undone as that it requires a reactivation of common forms of living, I draw on feminist scholars in STS to provide an alternative horizon of, what I call, dark infrastructures. In my talk, I relay experiences and stories from my ethnographic field work in Rotterdam South. These stories show experiential and often conflictual interdependencies that nevertheless engender common matters of care. I discuss the materially constrained places in these stories as dark infrastructures of care: they provide a precarious autonomy built on affective volunteer labour.