Bristol University Press
2 Rhythmic Infrastructure
Abstract
This chapter expands on the formative ideas presented by Henri Lefebvre in Rhythmanalysis. It examines the concept of ‘rhythm’ as an analytic to illuminate and connect the multitude of times that permeate the city through infrastructure. The chapter begins by assessing how urban infrastructures and social difference are animated, experienced, and understood through rhythm as repetition. It then explores the production and regulation of often conflicting natural and social rhythmic cycles, paying particular attention to the circulation of infrastructure knowledge and policy. The chapter then forwards that notions of infrastructural rhythm can productively form the basis for periodization strategies to comparatively analyse urban change. It is argued that engaging rhythmic temporal modalities is significant because how we think about infrastructure time profoundly shapes our understanding of urbanization and urban life. It is therefore a political act with the potential to reimagine and enact more progressive urban futures.
Abstract
This chapter expands on the formative ideas presented by Henri Lefebvre in Rhythmanalysis. It examines the concept of ‘rhythm’ as an analytic to illuminate and connect the multitude of times that permeate the city through infrastructure. The chapter begins by assessing how urban infrastructures and social difference are animated, experienced, and understood through rhythm as repetition. It then explores the production and regulation of often conflicting natural and social rhythmic cycles, paying particular attention to the circulation of infrastructure knowledge and policy. The chapter then forwards that notions of infrastructural rhythm can productively form the basis for periodization strategies to comparatively analyse urban change. It is argued that engaging rhythmic temporal modalities is significant because how we think about infrastructure time profoundly shapes our understanding of urbanization and urban life. It is therefore a political act with the potential to reimagine and enact more progressive urban futures.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of Figures and Tables v
- Notes on Contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xii
- Time for a Global Infrastructure Turn 1
- Rhythmic Infrastructure 25
-
Infrastructural Pasts, Presents, and Futures
- Usable Infrastructure Pasts: Mobilizing History for Urban Technology Futures 49
- Shifting Regimes of Historicity and the Control of Urban Futures through Infrastructures: Continuities, Ambivalences, and Tensions in the Anthropocene 72
- Extensions as Infrastructure: The Temporalities between Subjugation and Liberation in Jayapura, West Papua 95
-
Development Times and the Making of Urban Worlds
- Sequencing Like a State: Ciudad Guayana and the Infrastructures of Arrival 119
- The Times of Infrastructure Fundamentalism: Future Profits, Slow Operations, Long-Term Impacts 140
- Dissonant Times: The Land–Infrastructure–Finance Nexus in Post-Mubarak Egypt 160
-
Times of Disruption/Disrupting Times
- The Multiple Temporalities of Self-Healing Infrastructure: From the F-15 Fighter to the Smart Urban Microgrid 185
- Speed, Suspension, and Stasis: Waiting in the Shadow of Infrastructure 207
- Desynchronized Infrastructures of Care: Suburban Imaginaries Re-Examined 227
- Disrupting Infrastructure: Space, Speed, and Street Governance 249
- Urban Infrastructure In and Out of Time 270
- Index 285
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of Figures and Tables v
- Notes on Contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xii
- Time for a Global Infrastructure Turn 1
- Rhythmic Infrastructure 25
-
Infrastructural Pasts, Presents, and Futures
- Usable Infrastructure Pasts: Mobilizing History for Urban Technology Futures 49
- Shifting Regimes of Historicity and the Control of Urban Futures through Infrastructures: Continuities, Ambivalences, and Tensions in the Anthropocene 72
- Extensions as Infrastructure: The Temporalities between Subjugation and Liberation in Jayapura, West Papua 95
-
Development Times and the Making of Urban Worlds
- Sequencing Like a State: Ciudad Guayana and the Infrastructures of Arrival 119
- The Times of Infrastructure Fundamentalism: Future Profits, Slow Operations, Long-Term Impacts 140
- Dissonant Times: The Land–Infrastructure–Finance Nexus in Post-Mubarak Egypt 160
-
Times of Disruption/Disrupting Times
- The Multiple Temporalities of Self-Healing Infrastructure: From the F-15 Fighter to the Smart Urban Microgrid 185
- Speed, Suspension, and Stasis: Waiting in the Shadow of Infrastructure 207
- Desynchronized Infrastructures of Care: Suburban Imaginaries Re-Examined 227
- Disrupting Infrastructure: Space, Speed, and Street Governance 249
- Urban Infrastructure In and Out of Time 270
- Index 285
