Paper short abstract:

This paper critically examines infrastructural citizenship in the context of heterogenous infrastructure configurations. Taking South Africa, where hybrid water and energy technologies are increasingly adopted, research considers how heterogenous infrastructure renegotiates citizenship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper asks, how is infrastructural citizenship challenged and re-shaped by heterogenous infrastructure configurations? Infrastructural citizenship explores how state-citizen expectations and relationships are mediated and materialised through infrastructure. Analysing heterogenous infrastructure through a citizenship lens is important because access to basic services is typically regarded as a core state responsibility within the citizenship contract. However, despite the stubborn persistence of the modern infrastructural ideal within planning and public health, conflating universal networked public infrastructure with urban modernity, this is widely critiqued as a hegemonic myth that ignores global practice. In contrast, particularly in Africa, “hybrid” (Jaglin 2015) and “heterogeneous” (Lawhon et al 2018) infrastructure configurations are dominant, where infrastructure is “co-produced” (Rateau and Jaglin, 2020) as a “bricolage” (Fredericks 2018; Munro 2020) between actors, technologies and resources that are networked and non-networked, public and private. In this landscape, the state occupies a potentially less dominant and/or less visible, position, with consequences for how infrastructural citizenship is conceived and practised. This is important because citizens’ material secession from, and supplementation of, networked infrastructure frequently represents political dissatisfaction with the state, whilst also renegotiating the citizenship contract. For example, in South Africa citizens are transitioning towards hybrid and off-grid technologies and private suppliers not just to avoid material dependency on unreliable and unaffordable utility services, but also to avoid reliance on a state perceived as corrupt and inefficient. However, this has transformed fiscal co-dependencies between citizens and municipalities in ways that undermine South Africa’s civic commitment to redistribution and redefine infrastructural citizenship.

Paper short abstract:

Waste collection in many African cities have shifted from mechanical formal infrastructure to a more informal human practice. This paper does not just explore the actives of informal solid waste collectors but also interrogates the health and safety issues associated with their daily activities.

Paper long abstract:

Informal waste collection has been one of the majors ways through which many cities in Ghana are made clean. Meanwhile, solid waste collection has been noted to be one of the jobs that put human lives at risk. Handling and disposal of waste for some time now has been of concern to both development planners and public health experts. This is mainly because the collection of waste deals with handling of heavy objects and coming into contact with substances that are toxic to the human body. Insight into occupational Health and Safety of informal solid waste collectors is important as it can offer better management strategies to reduce the health effects of waste collection on the collectors.

This study therefore investigates the occupational characteristics, knowledge and practices of different types on informal waste collectors (itinerant waste collectors, dumpsite waste collectors and Household waste collectors) in the Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana. A cross-sectional study was used to survey 102 informal waste collectors as well as experts in waste management. The results, uncovered through qualitative analysis, revealed that knowledge, perception and practices of informal waste collectors were widely diverse as narratives on the use of Personal Protective Equipment, safe practices in waste disposal and visible effects (physical, chemical, ergonomic and psychosocial effects) of waste collection were very dependant on factors such education, gender and their environment. Amongst other recommendations, this study suggests that informal waste collectors should be monitored by the relevant institutions. It is also very important for them to be trained and educated on health and safety issues before they are made to start the job.

Paper short abstract:

This paper uses the concept of heterogeneous infrastructure configurations to raise lines of inquiry on broader questions of temporality, multiplicity of designs and actors as part of the urban sanitation configurations from two toilet cases in Kampala city, Uganda.

Paper long abstract:

The goal of this paper is to raise lines of inquiry on broader questions of temporality, multiplicity of designs and actors as part of the urban sanitation configurations. Using two cases from Kampala, we demonstrate technological diversity, connect this diversity to the preferences of users by showing linkages between toilets that are proximate to each other, and the importance of considering these relations between toilets over time. Our line of thought is motivated by studies recognizing the importance of off-grid sanitation technologies in cities where networked sanitation by publicly managed sewers is insufficient. However, we argue that such studies consider toilets as static, where technologies are chosen once at the project onset and in isolation from each other. We analyze our cases as heterogenous infrastructure configurations, emphasizing that there are relationships that vary over time and space between the different parts of infrastructure. Our analysis demonstrates how operations, cultural orientations, payment mechanisms and limitations have a significant bearing on feasibility, scalability, and integration into city-wide sanitation which is often not foreseen in planning phases. We thus conclude that sanitation configurations that enable flexibility rather than trying to predict needs may well enable more reliable infrastructure.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the making of heterogeneous water infrastructures along with two case studies of urban water supply in Khartoum and a rural hydro-development scheme in Kenya. It interprets heterogeneity in relation to ‚travelling models of development’.

Paper long abstract:

The paper contributes to ongoing debates about heterogeneous infrastructure in the Global South by scrutinizing the process of configuration, i.e., the planning and implementation of hydro-development schemes. It builds upon two case studies of water-related development projects. In the city of Khartoum, a newly constructed central water supply system for two million inhabitants improves access to clean water, but forces consumers to pay for the services. The case of Tana river in Kenya presents a cascade of multi-purpose dams which improve water supply for urban areas, irrigation schemes and national energy security, but at the price of large-scale land acquisitions, social unrest, and evictions. Both cases raise the question who benefits from large hydro-development projects, and how trade-offs between urban and rural areas are managed. Furthermore, the paper asks for the meaning of ‚heterogeneity’ and transformation.

We propose to look at the transformation of heterogeneous water infrastructures by understanding them as ‚travelling models‘, i.e., as blueprints which have been designed as standard technical solutions and are then transferred into specific environments in the Global South where they are locally negotiated, appropriated, modified, or resisted. The paper addresses three aspects in the process of configuration: First, the localization and place-making practices that go along with the configuration of heterogeneous infrastructure. Secondly, the impact of large ‚modern‘ infrastructure on the risk and robustness of local livelihoods. Thirdly, the role of the state and global capital as drivers of these processes.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on three examples of heterogeneous infrastructural processes in Nairobi we show different ways progress, disruption and completion are imagined, described, adjusted to and politicised.

Paper long abstract:

Infrastructure has long been understood as central to enabling ‘progress’, a visible sign of modernity and development. Southern urban scholarship has pushed back against modernist notions of the networked city as the teleological end of infrastructure, yet what ‘finished’ infrastructure entails remains the subject of inquiry. Here, we show how considering infrastructure as always in formation-- a work in progress-- helps us to understand infrastructural processes and politics and contemplate infrastructural futures. We draw on three examples in Nairobi to show different ways progress, disruption and completion are imagined, described, adjusted to and politicised. In our analysis of the creation of a bus rapid transit system, we see incremental changes and proclamation of an envisioned final state. In our consideration of the laying of pipes, wires and sidewalks in Kasarani, however, we see negotiations, adaptations and acceptance of what are seemingly indefinite disruptions. Finally, we examine sanitation infrastructure in Mathare, and call attention to uncertainties associated with off-grid infrastructures; individual artefacts may be built, but anticipated wider infrastructural configurations remain ambiguous. Throughout our paper, we also consider the politics of making progress through infrastructure, including the salience of visions of completeness and the political challenges of more open-ended infrastructural configurations.

Paper short abstract:

Hybrid infrastructures for alternative water and electricity supply are increasingly common. Interrogation of the interplay of motivations and justifications is important to understand energy transitions and their impacts, with opportunities for rethinking hybrid and heterogenous infrastructures.

Paper long abstract:

Largely in response to the growing costs and insecurity of water and electricity supply from municipal and public systems, increasing numbers of households and businesses are installing hybrid infrastructures for alternative supply sources. The direct impacts of rolling electricity blackouts and the threat of municipal water running out in Cape Town have shaped changes in behaviour for accessing and consuming electricity and water, revealing of the importance of context in driving change. It is important to analyse these shifts through a weighing of motivations and justifications, the paper showing how environmentalist justifications often predominate the discourse despite original motivations for change coming from a mix of other factors. The paper is methodologically based on interviews with businesses, households, officials and experts. With these, an autoethnographic vignette explore the blur between motivations and justifications for alternative energy and water supply, demonstrating the tensions between stated and actual attentions. This article aims not to argue simply that environmental justification for changing behaviour regarding water and electricity amount to nothing more than greenwashing, but instead that careful interrogation of motivations in interplay with justifications is important to understand the nature of energy transitions and their complex drivers and impacts. Using this lens to explore the principles and pragmatism of households, businesses and state actors is revealing of the potential for justice in the energy transition as well as of the impact of context on these shifts, arguing for the importance of legislation, policy and public education to guide regulation of transforming infrastructures.

Paper short abstract:

Heterogeneous configurations shape infrastructure development in Africa. Through the narration and analysis of a Chinese project in Ghana, the paper aims to bring to light and investigate conformations and implications of heterogeneous actor configurations hidden behind projects labelled as Chinese.

Paper long abstract:

“Is it really about China?” asks Gagliardone (2019) in one of the last chapters of his book China, Africa, and the Future of the Internet, which investigates whether and how China is influencing the shaping of information societies in Africa. The same question can be asked regarding China's presence in African infrastructure development. The answer will probably be the same: no, or better, not only. As observed during the thirteen months of fieldwork research conducted between October 2021 and December 2022 with Chinese and non-Chinese actors involved in infrastructure projects in Ghana, heterogeneous configurations characterize (large-scale) infrastructure projects in Africa. These configurations represent a discontinuity with the past and show the emergence of new dynamics among the actors involved.

In presenting the history and implications of a Chinese-financed and built project involving the construction of twelve fishing ports along the Ghanaian coast, I will ask the same question.

Through the narration of the project, I will illustrate heterogeneous configurations and discuss how central and local government elites’ interests, “African agency”, foreign states, and companies’ business influence infrastructure development projects in Africa.

The purpose is not so much about acquitting China (or the Chinese state-owned company) for the consequences of the realisation, and failure, of a project. Rather, it is about showing how heterogeneous actor configurations, private interests, and power dynamics hide behind the label of a project as “Chinese”.

The aim is to analyse infrastructure projects not only as material objects but also as traces of wider global heterogeneous configurations.

Paper short abstract:

Understanding of oil production and distribution beyond project visioning to implementation is critical, yet such studies are rarely conducted. The proposed study seeks to investigate costs and benefits analysis of crude oil production, refinery, and pipeline development at the LAPPSET corridor.

Paper long abstract:

Oil production, refining and distribution projects through pipelines are associated with both positive and negative externalities. Understanding of oil production and distribution beyond project visioning to implementation is critical to policy makers. Yet, studies to inform such decisions are rarely conducted. While there are upcoming studies that seek to analyze how visioning, institutional context and local knowledge that informs current & proposed development of energy projects in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Quantitative analysis of the implementation element of such project’s visions are lacking. The proposed study seeks to addresses this gap and narrows the focus to investigate costs and benefits analysis (CBA) of crude oil production, refinery, and pipeline development at the LAPPSET corridor.

The proposed study offers a joint study on the costs and benefits analysis (CBA) of crude oil production, refinery, and pipeline development at the LAPPSET corridor. Previous studies globally have focused on one component on value chain analysis of crude oil separately: either on production, refinery, or pipeline development. Second, empirical studies on externalities of oil production, refining and on pipeline development have either focused on positive or negative externalities, with some focusing on only direct effects and others lacking comprehensive analysis of both direct and indirect effects. Third, this study deploys the use of CBA approach which is both suitable for appraisal of projects yet to commence and for evaluation of projects that a have been completed. Lastly, sensitivity analysis lacking in many studies will be undertaken to establish the economic value and societal welfare implications.