The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure

Item Type Journal Article Author Brian Larkin URL https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155522 Volume 42 Issue Volume 42, 2013 Pages 327-343 Publication Annual Review of Anthropology ISSN 0084-6570, 1545-4290 Date 2013/10/21 Extra Publisher: Annual Reviews DOI 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155522 Accessed 2024-07-24 18:33:13 Library Catalog www.annualreviews.org Language en Abstract Infrastructures are material forms that allow for the possibility of exchange over space. They are the physical networks through which goods, ideas, waste, power, people, and finance are trafficked. In this article I trace the range of anthropological literature that seeks to theorize infrastructure by drawing on biopolitics, science and technology studies, and theories of technopolitics. I also examine other dimensions of infrastructures that release different meanings and structure politics in various ways: through the aesthetic and the sensorial, desire and promise.