| 1. |
- Ernstson, Henrik, 1972-, et al.
(författare)
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Conceptual Vectors of African Urbanism : 'Engaged Theory-Making' and 'Platforms of Engagement'
- 2014
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Ingår i: Regional studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0034-3404 .- 1360-0591. ; 48:9, s. 1563-1577
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban political ecology (UPE) has provided critical insights into the sociomaterial construction of urban environments, their unequal distribution of resources, and contestation over power and resources. Most of this work is rooted in Marxist urban geographical theory, which provides a useful but limited analysis. Such works typically begin with a historical-materialist theory of power, then examine particular artifacts and infrastructure to provide a critique of society.We argue that there aremultipleways of expanding this framing, including through political ecology or wider currents of Marxism. Here, we demonstrate one possibility: starting from theory and empirics in the South, specifically, African urbanism. We show how African urbanism can inform UPE and the associated research methods, theory and practice to create a more situated UPE. We begin suggesting what a situated UPE might entail: starting with everyday practices, examining diffuse forms of power, and opening the scope for radical incrementalism.
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| 2. |
- Ernstson, Henrik, Dr. 1972-, et al.
(författare)
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Turning Livelihood to Rubbish? : The Politics of Value and Valuation in South Africa’s Urban Waste Sector
- 2021
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Ingår i: African Cities and Collaborative Futures. - Manchester : Manchester University Press. ; , s. 97-120
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We will discuss our experience of researching solid waste management politics in South African cities, in particular Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Ekurhuleni. The title of our project – Turning Livelihoods to Waste? – was designed to raise a serious of questions about ongoing trends in the waste sector and the implications. South African household waste management operates under a paradigm of cooperative governance where authority is distributed across various scales of government, business, and society. Recent efforts to expand, improve, and formalize solid household waste management and recycling initiatives have implications for those who currently work with waste - particularly for informal waste pickers or reclaimers, who do much of the primary work with waste in the global south. Despite promises of green economic development and job creation, many people working with waste in South Africa work are subjected to precarious and difficult work conditions or experience new uncertainties and vulnerabilities which threaten existing livelihood strategies. In turn, there are serious questions about whether waste workers should be expected to work in dangerous conditions, and what sorts of alternate arrangements may be more just and more ecologically sustainable.
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| 3. |
- Karpouzoglou, Timos, Dr, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Reversing the gaze : exploring sustainability from the vantage point of the global South
- 2022
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Development research and interventions were for many years based on the assumption that richcountries had superior knowledge, solutions and expertise that could and should be transferred to"developing" countries. Strengthening capacity, institutions and scientists in low-income countries soonformed part of the agenda in order to increase their "absorptive capacity", create a more level ground forinternational research collaboration, and boost development. There is a growing need of placing theSouthern hemisphere in the forefront in global sustainability research. However, little attention has beengiven to the advantages of collaboration with low-income regions in order to produce new insights withglobal relevance. In the global South, there are experiments and innovations which might well inspirenew practises as well as alternative ways of understanding, and solving, sustainability challenges.Further, juxtaposition and distance may enable those in the north to see phenomena ‘at home’differently. In this paper we explore some distinct aspects of what can be gained from researchcollaboration with the global South.
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| 4. |
- Karpouzoglou, Timos, et al.
(författare)
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The re-configuration of water infrastructure by narratives of socio-nature
- 2020
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The modern infrastructure ideal of universal, uniform, networked infrastructure has been challenged across the Global North and South. We therefore observe a growing set of concerns across the North and South about what a more resilient and socially inclusive way of providing basic water infrastructure might entail. A set of transformative processes that vary globally are set in motion that are more about embracing diversity in infrastructure that has been articulated elsewhere as ‘heterogeneous infrastructure configurations’ (Lawhon et al. 2018). This heterogeneity is also evident in narratives such as ‘working with nature’, which seek to bring into the discussion of infrastructure a different way of thinking about environmental risk and uncertainty. Such narratives may draw attention to the importance of socio-natures that were previously not articulated in water infrastructures. Most of these narratives however have been articulated in Northern contexts and in relation to formal infrastructure. In this paper, we seek to lay out a theoretical framework that brings socio-nature and water infrastructure in conversation with global south literature, science technology studies and urban political ecology. Importantly, we seek to develop a framework that focuses on the importance of heterogeneity as well as political and power related implications of narratives of socio-nature.
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| 5. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Making heterogeneous infrastructure futures in and beyond the global south
- 2023
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier Ltd. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Infrastructure has never been a single thing, understood in a universal way. Yet, there has long been a broad overarching orthodox approach in which ‘experts’ create replicable, stable, large, networked systems to control nature and ensure regular, predictable flows of people, materials and information. Within this orthodoxy, infrastructure is narrated as good, contributing to economic and social development. In this paper, we identify environmental, economic, political and social pressures challenging this approach to infrastructure, pushing for it to be understood, enacted and constructed differently. We then show how actors have responded to these pressures through examples of flood mitigation, corridor development and sanitation. Our cases are not pure instances of a new approach. Instead, we use them to tease out emergent efforts (and struggles) to rework infrastructure, to make it more fluid, flexible, sustainable and responsive to democratic demands, as well as to more clearly link infrastructure with well-being. These examples reinforce the importance of differentiating infrastructure, including considering how particular approaches imagine and contribute to sustainability and well-being. In this context, we point towards broader ideas of how infrastructure might be reimagined and remade in the future, and the difficult politics of such new visions.
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| 6. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Provincializing urban political ecology : Towards a situated UPE through African urbanism
- 2014
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Ingår i: Antipode. - : Wiley. - 0066-4812 .- 1467-8330. ; 46:2, s. 497-516
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban political ecology (UPE) has provided critical insights into the sociomaterial construction of urban environments, their unequal distribution of resources, and contestation over power and resources. Most of this work is rooted in Marxist urban geographical theory, which provides a useful but limited analysis. Such works typically begin with a historical-materialist theory of power, then examine particular artifacts and infrastructure to provide a critique of society.We argue that there aremultipleways of expanding this framing, including through political ecology or wider currents of Marxism. Here, we demonstrate one possibility: starting from theory and empirics in the South, specifically, African urbanism. We show how African urbanism can inform UPE and the associated research methods, theory and practice to create a more situated UPE. We begin suggesting what a situated UPE might entail: starting with everyday practices, examining diffuse forms of power, and opening the scope for radical incrementalism.
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| 7. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Solving/understanding/evaluating the e-waste challenge through transdisciplinarity?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier BV. - 0016-3287. ; 42:10, s. 1212-1221
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Transdisciplinarity has been accepted as a promising research approach to respond to complex real-world problems such as electronic waste (e-waste). Already one of the fastest growing waste streams, e-waste is a sustainability challenge that shadows the pervasive uses of electronic devices in contemporary society. Previous studies have not only shown the toxicity and risks inherent in the hazardous waste but also economic value generated from its reuse and recycling and the environment justice implications of the existing transboundary movement of e-waste to developing countries. Responding to this multifaceted issue requires a transdisciplinary attempt at synthesis understandings, if not solutions. This paper reflects on an educational experiment to encourage disciplinary boundary crossing in the e-waste community through a summer school. The NVMP-StEP E-waste Summer School housed young researchers from diverse disciplines with a common research interest in e-waste. The event is evaluated against three sets of criteria that underpin successful transdisciplinary ventures: (i) clear, problem-oriented goals, (ii) careful preparation, institutional support and competent management, and (iii) communication and collaboration. Based on understandings and insights gained from the participation in the Summer School, participant surveys, and communications with organizers, six recommendations are outlined to help making similar events a better ground for transdisciplinarity in the future.
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| 8. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Thinking through Heterogeneous Infrastructure Configurations
- 2018
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Ingår i: Urban Studies. - : Sage Publications. - 0042-0980 .- 1360-063X. ; 55:4, s. 720-732
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Studies of infrastructure have demonstrated broad differences between Northern and Southern cities, and deconstructed urban theory derived from experiences of the networked urban regions of the global North. This includes critiques of the universalization of the historically-culturally produced normative ideal of universal, uniform infrastructure. We introduce the notion of “heterogeneous infrastructure configurations” (HICs) as a way to analyze urban infrastructure that builds on postcolonial critiques of knowledge, as well as ethnographies of everyday Southern urbanisms. We argue that the notion of HIC helps us to move beyond technological and performative accounts of actually existing infrastructures to provide an analytical lens through which to compare different configurations. Our approach enables a clearer analysis of infrastructural artifacts not as individual objects but as parts of geographically spread socio-technological configurations: configurations which might involve many different kinds technologies, relations, capacities and operations, entailing different risks and power relationships. We use examples from ongoing research on sanitation and waste in Kampala, Uganda- a city in which service delivery is characterized by multiplicity, overlap, disruption and inequality- to demonstrate the kinds of research questions that emerge when thinking through the notion of HICs.
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| 9. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a modest imaginary? Sanitation in Kampala beyond the modern infrastructure ideal
- 2023
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Ingår i: Urban Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0042-0980 .- 1360-063X. ; 60, s. 146-165
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The idea of the modern city continues to inform urban policies and practices, shaping ideas of what infrastructure is and how it ought to work. While there has long been conflict over its meaning and relevance, particularly in southern cities, alternatives remain difficult to identify. In this paper, we ‘read for difference’ in the policies and practices of sanitation in Kampala, purposefully looking for evidence of an alternative imaginary. We find increasing acceptance of and support for heterogeneous technological artefacts and a shift to consider these as part of wider infrastructures. These sanitation configurations are, at times, no longer framed as temporary placeholders while ‘waiting for modernity’, but instead as pathways towards a not yet predetermined end. What this technological change means for policies, permissions and socio-economic relations is also as yet unclear: the roles and responsibilities of the modern infrastructure ideal have limited significance, but new patterns remain in the making. Further, while we find increased attention to limits and uncertainty, we also see efforts to weave modernist practices (creating legible populations, knowing and controlling nature) into emergent infrastructural configurations. In this context, we consider Kampala not as a complete instantiation of a ‘modest’ approach to infrastructure, but as a place where struggles over infrastructure are rooted in competing, dynamic imaginaries about how the world is and what this means for the cities we build. It is also a place from which we might begin articulating a ‘modest imaginary’ that enables rethinking what infrastructure is and ought to be.
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| 10. |
- Lawhon, Mary, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a modest infrastructural imaginary? Sanitation in Kampala beyond the modern infrastructure ideal
- 2021
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The idea of the modern city continues to shape urban policies and practices, yet there has long been conflict over its meaning and relevance, particularly in southern cities. Alternative imaginaries, however, are partial and/or insufficiently detailed. In this paper, we first examine the modernness of modern urban infrastructure in the context of ongoing shifts away from modern ideals. Then, inspired by Gibson-Graham’s process of reading for difference, we purposefully look for fragments of what we call an emergent ‘modest sociotechnical imaginary’ in order to contribute to a fuller description of a non-modern imaginary. We examine policies and practices of sanitation in Kampala, where narratives make space for sanitation beyond the grid, seeking to improve sanitation without a predetermined teleological end. What this opening means, however, is the subject of ongoing contestations. Working between modern and anti-modern imaginaries means finding ways to choose technologies and legitimate, permit, govern, regulate, finance and distribute the costs and benefits of them with limited knowledge and control. In Kampala, we find evidence of both i) modest acceptance of limits and uncertainty and ii) efforts to layer modernist urges to create populations, know and control into emergent infrastructures. In this context, Kampala is not framed as an instantiation of a clearly defined alternative to the modern. Instead, we suggest the questions and contestations arising in Kampala are evidence of the coexistence of a modest imaginary, and that such examinations help us to deepen our understanding of ongoing struggles over what infrastructure is and ought to be.
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| 11. |
- Lawhon, Mary, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Unlearning [Un]Located Ideas in the Provincialization of Urban Theory
- 2016
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Ingår i: Regional studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0034-3404 .- 1360-0591. ; 50:9, s. 1611-1622
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Postcolonial scholars have argued for the provincialization of urban knowledge, but doing so remains an opaque process. This paper argues that explicit attention to 'learning to unlearn' unstated theoretical assumptions and normativities can aid in provincialization, and demonstrate ways in which theorizing entails a socio-spatial situation. The authors' efforts to grapple with operationalizing learning to unlearn in three different urban cases are described, followed by an articulation of strategies for theorizing which more explicitly acknowledge theory-building's situatedness as well as points of reflection for developing postcolonial urban theory. It is argued that this usefully shifts the focus of unlearning from 'who' is theorizing 'where' towards theory's unstated norms and assumptions.
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| 12. |
- Nilsson, David, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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The city beyond the network
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Historically, the modern infrastructure ideal has dominated the imagination of urbanists. As a consequence, cities and their infrastructures of pipes, roads, wires and trams, have largely been built in the same way all over world. Or have they? Recent urban scholarship suggests that cities and their modes of service provision needs to be re-envisaged, especially in the global South, not just through the lens of the ’situated’ but through disentangling it from the modernist framing altogether. The multilayered challenges - including new types of vulnerabilities of technology and users - experienced by cityregions worldwide imply that a new thought-model is called for. This paper picks up the concept of ‘Heterogeneous Infrastructure Configuration’ (HIC) suggested by Lawhon, Nilsson, Silver, Erntson and Lwasa (2017). In somewhat speculative fashion we go on to hypothesise that Stockholm, Nairobi and Kampala are at interesting historical junctures in terms of conceiving infrastructures and how they distribute power and risk across user spectrums. Are urban infrastructures across the globe being re-engineered from below, but for different reasons? We sketch at a research agenda where grounded and diverse experiences of global North and South will generate new insights for sustainable transformation of cities globally.
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| 13. |
- Sseviiri, Hakimu, et al.
(författare)
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Claiming value in a heterogeneous solid waste configuration in Kampala
- 2020
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Ingår i: Urban geography. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0272-3638 .- 1938-2847. ; , s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Kampala has a complex set of regulations describing actors, rules and procedures for collection and transportation of waste, and requires waste to be disposed of at the landfill. Yet little of the city’s waste moves through this “formal system”. Building on wider scholarship on urban infrastructure and calls to theorize from southern cities, we examine recycling in Kampala as a heterogeneous infrastructure configuration. Kampala’s lively recycling sector is socially and materi- ally diverse: it is comprised of entrepreneurs, public-private partner- ships and non-governmental organizations, as well as a range of materials with different properties and value. We articulate how actors assert claims, obtain permissions, build and maintain relation- ships as they rework flows away from the landfill. We argue that recognizing socio-material heterogeneity throughout the waste con- figuration enables a clearer analysis of contested processes of claim- ing value from waste. We also demonstrate how these efforts have pressured the state to reconsider the merits of the modern infra- structure ideal as a model for what (good) infrastructure is and ought to be. Various actors assert more heterogeneous alternatives, raising the possibility of alternative modes of infrastructure which might generate better incomes and improve service provision.
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