The Temporal Fragility of Water Infrastructure: Conceptualizing the Gendered, Affective Labor of Maintenance and Repair

Kathleen O'Reilly, Kavita Ramakrishnan, Jessica Budds

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

In this paper, we advance debates on the material and social processes surrounding infrastructure, giving specific attention to what we call infrastructure’s temporal fragility, through a focus on the processes of decay, maintenance, and repair that characterize such phases of infrastructural life. We explore how specific infrastructures are materially shaped by social, political, and socio-ecological arrangements. Our goals are twofold: first, to conceptualize decay, maintenance, and repair as both temporal phases of infrastructure’s dynamic materiality and its specific affective conditions; and second, to trace how these phases of infrastructural life rework embodied labor and differentiated citizenship. We argue that attention to infrastructure’s temporal fragility elucidates the articulation between everyday capacities and desires to labor, the creation of and demands made by political constituents, and the uneven distribution of opportunities and resources.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRoutledge Handbook of Gender and Water Governance
EditorsTatiana Acevedo-Guerrero, Lisa Bossenbroek, Irene Leonardelli, Margreet Zwarteveen, Seema Kulkarni
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Chapter7
Pages98-107
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781003100379
ISBN (Print)9780367607586
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2024

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