Urbanism and Infrastructure
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Cities constitute thick materiality of buildings, technology, means of transportation/mobility, spatialized culture and subcultures. The ways urban life and livelihood are structured affect possible life trajectories, social hierarchies and visions of personal and national futures and dreams, as well as the world beyond. Technology and infrastructure also influence the way we perceive and interact with the surrounding environment, nature and even outer space.
Researchers at the department engage in studies of urbanism and infrastructure in several ways, through questions such as: How does the organization of work and life in the form of “projects” interact with contemporary economy, society and statecraft in Egypt? What happens to social and environmental relations when confronted by the extra-terrestrial as an infrastructural phenomenon? How are wires, pipes and roads used to predict a city’s logic in Nigeria? How are perceptions of nature in Iceland connected to familial and national notions of heritage? What can a city tell us about the relation between state and indigenous peoples, poverty, inequality and the intersections of gender, class and ethnicity in the Andean region?