Rethinking urban environmental and infrastructural governance in the everyday: Perspectives from and of the global South

Truelove, Yaffa; Cornea, Natasha

doi:10.1177/2399654420972117

Cited by 22 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Everyday urbanism, which has become a dominant lens through which to research urban life and conceptualize everyday governance, uses a process-oriented analysis to understand how cities work and what drives urban transformation by leveraging the richness of the diverse everyday practices of urban dwellers as the basis for theorization (Alda-Vidal et al, 2018;Truelove and Cornea, 2020).…”

Section: Informality Governance and Everyday Urbanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday contours and politics of infrastructure: Informal governance of electricity access in urban Ghana

Amankwaa

Gough

2021

Urban Studies

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This article contributes to shaping the discourse on unequal geographies of infrastructure and governance in the global South, opening up new ways of thinking through politics, practices and modalities of power. Conceptually, informality, governance and everyday urbanism are drawn on to unpack how the formal encounters the informal in ways that (re)configure infrastructure geographies and governance practices. This conceptual framing is empirically employed through an analysis of electricity access in Accra, Ghana, highlighting how residents navigate unequal electricity topographies, engage in self-help initiatives, and negotiate informal networks and formal governance practices. The spatiality of the electricity infrastructure has created inequity and opportunities for exploitation by ‘power-owners’ and ‘power-agents’ who control and manage the electricity distribution network and, in turn, privately supply power. Electricity connections are negotiated, access is monetised and illegality excused on grounds of good-neighbourliness, thereby producing and perpetuating everyday politics of ‘making do’. Community movements, everyday acts of improvisation, and incremental modifications are shown to influence the workings of formal institutions of government and shape uneven power relations and experiences of inequality. Such an understanding of how marginalised residents navigate the electricity topographies of Accra reveals a more nuanced politics of infrastructure access, which reflects the complex realities of hybridised modalities of governance and the multiple everyday dimensions of power that shape urban space. The article concludes that informality should not be recognised as failure but as a sphere of opportunity, innovation and transition.

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Section: Informality Governance and Everyday Urbanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday contours and politics of infrastructure: Informal governance of electricity access in urban Ghana

Amankwaa

Gough

2021

Urban Studies

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“…Coproduction creates a complex backdrop through an ongoing relationship between communities and the State [8,20]; yet, the daily works and the description of specific management functions are seldom mentioned. An exception in line with ideas of focusing on daily practices [21] is one report on the day-to-day work of community organizations that provide water in rural settings in Africa [22] although it did not use the concept of coproduction. In this sense, working with the "flesh and bones" creates a richer picture and a more nuanced comprehension of what works in a specific context [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships as a Basis for Safe Drinking Water Provision by Cooperatives in Rural Chile

Pareja

Fuentes

Arriagada

2022

Water

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While access to drinking water has expanded worldwide, safely managed provision is still a challenge, and rural areas are specially underserved. To provide safe drinking water for these areas, water scholars and international organizations have advocated for community-based organizations or coproduction schemes. The literature often mentions that institutions and people play a key role in the provision of drinking water although the specific mechanisms through which they may affect the process of maintaining good quality water have not been reported yet. The article aims to fill this gap by providing a complex, local view on this process. In Chile, from 1960 onwards, the State has implemented cooperatives to provide for drinking water in rural and small-town areas under a coproduction scheme. In this scheme, the State provides the infrastructure, and the community is responsible for service provision. We analysed the water quality of six of these cooperatives and conducted interviews with water managers and leaders. Our research suggests that formal and informal relationships provide the links and motivation needed for the organizations continuous work. These results highlight how relevant it is to keep in mind the context and the public role of delivering safe drinking water.

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“…Following De Certeau's (1984) notion of the everyday as a site of transformation and resistance, critical urban scholarship has conceptualized everyday practices as a manifestation of resistance against different forms of domination, exclusion, and control over resources (Graham & McFarlane, 2014; Lawhon et al, 2014; McFarlane, 2011; McFarlane & Silver, 2017). Central to this literature are questions around the potential of everyday practices of reclaiming and transforming urban spaces and relations and, ultimately, of producing alternative, more democratic and equitable cities within the “orthodox” one (Iveson, 2013; Lawhon et al, 2014; Parnell & Robinson, 2012; Pieterse, 2008; Truelove & Cornea, 2021). Whilst far removed from “big politics,” the practices of the everyday, these authors argue, can undermine and transform established authoritative patterns by developing new notions of citizenship, mobilizing spaces, or by developing alternative economies (Iveson, 2013; Lawhon et al, 2014; Myers, 2003; Staeheli et al, 2012, p. 630).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking everyday urbanism: Practices and the making of (un)even urban waterscapes

Rusca

Cleaver

2022

WIREs Water

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Inequalities in conditions of access to water are emblematic of contemporary urban life and have long been at the center of urban scholarship. This paper considers the theoretical and empirical potential of a focus on the everyday as a contribution to critical urban water studies. Drawing on research in Political Ecology and Critical Institutionalism, we focus on the intersection of everyday urbanism and water to reflect on whether such perspectives can further understandings of socio-natural inequalities and "real" governance challenges in the urban waterscape. We suggest that a focus on the everyday brings attention to the hybrid arrangements that constitute urban waterscapes and offers new insights to the polycentric nature of water governance, agency, and everyday urban struggles. However, we also outline limitations of these studies in unpacking the concept of the everyday and in capturing the practices through which everyday life is constituted. We explore the potential of an engagement with Practice Theory as a sensitizing lens for developing grounded understandings of everyday life, its constituent practices, and how these change over time. Concurrently, we argue that Practice Theory could be strengthened by drawing on critical approaches that explain everyday urban governance through:(1) the linking of practices to broader patterns of inequality; (2) the multiple social identities of practitioners and the variability in their exercise of agency; (3) the role of institutions as crucial mediating mechanisms and the processes through which practices become enduring institutional arrangements. We, thus, conclude that these approaches are complementary rather than competing.

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Rethinking urban environmental and infrastructural governance in the everyday: Perspectives from and of the global South

Cited by 22 publications

References 61 publications

Everyday contours and politics of infrastructure: Informal governance of electricity access in urban Ghana

Everyday contours and politics of infrastructure: Informal governance of electricity access in urban Ghana

Relationships as a Basis for Safe Drinking Water Provision by Cooperatives in Rural Chile

Unpacking everyday urbanism: Practices and the making of (un)even urban waterscapes

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