Urban Infrastructuring: trajectories of infrastructural entanglement in cities of the Global South: Introduction

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of infrastructural entanglement to denote the close relationships and correlations that develop between components of infrastructural configurations and other social, ecological, political, or otherwise defined systems as part of urbanisation and globalisation in countries of the Global South. We employ the notion of infrastructuring as engendering complex infrastructural entanglements that have severe implications for sustainability. We argue that infrastructuring is essential to urbanisation, that it is entangled with socio-spatio-ecological transformations that often have negative outcomes over time and that it requires an ethical positioning in research and practice in order to enhance infrastructural sustainability in the face of intersecting environmental, social and economic crises. Building on these assumptions, the chapter introduces the overall argument of the edited volume, which is developed in three parts. First, the volume identifies infrastructural entanglements across various urban and urbanising settings in the Global South. Second, it highlights some of the damaging processes and outcomes of urban infrastructuring and argues that the absence, presence and transformation of infrastructure in the Global South (re-)produces socioecological injustice in the short- and long term. Third, the volume argues for a shift of infrastructuring agendas towards more just and sustainable interventions.