No. 7
Public Infrastructures / Infrastructural Publics
Infrastructure has always had a privileged relationship to both expertise and the public in modern government. But in the early 21st century, this relationship is inflected in novel ways. The purposes public infrastructure was meant to serve—welfare, quality of life, economic development, and so on—persist. But they are often conceptualized differently, promoted by different agencies, and articulated through novel technological and collective relations. This issue of Limn explores new formations of infrastructure, publicness, and expertise.The contributions examine how new forms of expertise conceive the public and make claims in its name, how publics are making novel claims on experts (and claims to expertise), and how earlier norms and techniques of infrastructure provisioning are being adapted in the process.
Published July 2016
In This Issue
Preface: Public Infrastructures / Infrastructural Publics
Stephen J. Collier, James Christopher Mizes, and Antina von Schnitzler ask how infrastructures and their publics are taking shape today.
Rebuilding by Design in Post-Sandy New York
What is the scope for local planning in large-scale infrastructure projects today? Stephen J. Collier, Savannah Cox, and Kevin Grove explore the multiple publics of flood control in New York City
Infrastructural Incursions
What does it take to flood a highway? Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox examine how old infrastructure projects—and old infrastructural publics—get submerged by new ones in Peru.
Aeolian Infrastructures, Aeolian Publics
Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer examine the politics of wind and power – in all their turbulence – in Oaxaca, Mexico
Are We All Flint?
Why is lead-contaminated water a matter of public concern but contaminated housing is not? Catherine Fennell explores infrastructure and the politics of solidarity.
Crafting a Digital Public
What makes a city smart? Alan Wiig examines a project to promote urban development through information infrastructure in Philadelphia.
China’s Infrastructural Fix
How is modernity being reclaimed as a Chinese project? Jonathan Bach investigates the politics of infrastructure in today's most ambitious developmental state.
The Thick and Thin of the Zone
Soe Lin Aung examines the Thilawa special economic zone to shed light on infrastructure’s changing publics in contemporary Myanmar.
Spongy Aquifers, Messy Publics
Is an aquifer a tank or a sponge? Andrea Ballestero investigates how publics navigate the scientific indeterminacy of the underground in Costa Rica
Who Owns Africa’s Infrastructure?
James Christopher Mizes examines how an emerging style of African infrastructure planning and finance is inflecting an old political collectivity with “new” values.
The Zone of Entrainment
We know that environmental concerns have been used to block infrastructure projects. But can infrastructure be used to side-step environmental concerns? Andrew Lakoff on water provision and species protection in California.
An “Expensive Toy”
What does Abu Dhabi's green future look like? Gökçe Günel explores Masdar City in a once-promising Personal Rapid Transit Pod.
Between the Nation and the State
Is your mobile phone company seeing like a state? Emma Park and Kevin P. Donovan explore telecommunications and contemporary nationalism in Kenya.
Drought as Infrastructural Event
Ashley Carse explores water distribution and its publics on the Isthmus of Panama
Nuclear States, Renewable Democracies?
Andreas Folkers recalls how nuclear energy created a powerful counter-public in Germany beginning in the 1970s, and assesses the contemporary politics of energy alternatives.
Europe’s Materialism: Infrastructures and Political Space
Sven Opitz and Ute Tellmann explore energy infrastructure and the construction of a European commons.
Infrastructure Made Public
Five year planning is dead. Long live the five year plan! Andrew Barry explores infrastructure's transparencies and opacities in the UK
Hydraulic Publics
Nikhil Anand explores why reforms to the Mumbai water system failed.
Expertise in the Grid
Do you know how to read your electricity bill? Canay Özden-Schilling examines how new electricity experts—and new publics—are creating and contesting the price of U.S. household energy today.