The Science and Politics of Infrastructure Research: Asserting Power, Place, and Agency in Infrastructure Knowledge

Abstract

Despite over half a century of research concerning infrastructure development processes, structurally oriented development theories continue to dominate infrastructure research and praxis. Critically informed approaches to development, which acknowledge the integral role of power, place, and agency to infrastructure research, have yet to make a noticeable mark within infrastructure development policy-making. Towards the goal of giving greater prominence to the critical perspective, I propose the Critical Acquisition Framework. The framework is designed to facilitate an agency-oriented understanding of infrastructure development processes from the perspectives of marginalized groups. Inspired by critical-social theory and capability analyses, the Critical Acquisition Framework helps to understand how marginalized groups deploy their existing capability sets to access infrastructure via multiple and overlapping institutions. In addition, the framework helps to envision alternative agency-oriented scenarios of infrastructure access. In essence, the framework demonstrates how the acquisition process influences the capability sets and therefore power of marginalized groups, and can be used to assess whether infrastructure “develops” according to local perspectives, or reifies inequitable power relations.

Keywords:

• Infrastructure
• Development
• Access
• Agency
• Capabilities
• Institutions

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

About the Author

Dr. Candice Gartner is a Private Consultant based in British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests concern: infrastructure, institutions, poverty, inequality, and the evaluation of development processes.

Notes

1. This paper refers explicitly to physical infrastructure, which are defined as objects and systems which are introduced to the built environment. This definition is similar to what economists and planners refer to as “hard infrastructure” (Fourie 2006), but for the purpose of this paper, does not automatically imply an economic or productive purpose.

2. For a good example of an intra-disciplinary debate within economics on the effects of infrastructure investment on productivity, see Aschauer (1989), Gramlich (1994), and Munnell (1992).

3. See Guasch (2004) for a discussion on the various private participation infrastructure arrangements.

4. For example, increased access to potable domestic water may be viewed as an ends to poverty reduction, while increased productivity and employment would be viewed as a means to poverty reduction.

5. However, there is plentiful opportunity for further research in examining the will and desirability of infrastructure according to locally defined development objectives.

6. Endowments refers to the existing set of capabilities and vulnerabilities an individual may have at any point in time and prior to the time at which acquisition analyses takes place. For a more detailed discussion on endowments and entitlements within the context of the acquisition of natural resources, see Leach, Mearns, and Scoones (1999).