COURSE DETAIL
This course explores what infrastructure is, what infrastructure does, and what the study of infrastructure can contribute to anthropological knowledge. Topics include: the promise of infrastructure; how infrastructure can broaden our understanding of the political; what happens when infrastructure does not work, remains unfinished, or fails; how infrastructure challenges or supports social inequalities and discriminations; and how alternative infrastructure can be imagined. Drawing on a range of ethnographic case studies, the course advances the capacity to interpret existing materialities and structures, including their failures and unintended consequences; as well provides a solid understanding of some of the key theories and analytical approaches that inform this field of study, and their methodological and ethical implications.