Peer Schouten Profile picture
Jul 4 14 tweets 9 min read
Very proud to announce 'infrastructural frontiers: terrains of resistance at the edge of empires' has been published by #Geoforum, a collective & interdisciplinary attempt to bridge the study of #infrastructure and #resistance. A thread w/main takeaways
Featuring archeologists, activists, anthropologists, political scientists & geographers, the special issue pushes the study of the politics of infrastructure to its physical and theoretical frontiers, w/cases from Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa
Infrastructure is ubiquitous & key form of power in social sciences; yet, the infrastructural power of states isn't spread out equally across the globe, w/large areas in Global South comprising 'state-resistant terrains' (@JacobAShell) where infrastructure is highly contested
The Intro by Jan Bachmann & myself introduces the concept of 'infrastructural frontiers' & promotes following the infrastructures of empire to the 'material edge of the state' where infrastructural power breaks down, meets resistance & rough terrain: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
The infrastructural frontier is where the 'remote control' of states (@jmsaxer) meet the friction of terrain, producing 'frontier effects' (@teoballve).
This can be at territorial borders, but, as Fernand Braudel already observed, 'they punctuate the central regions too, with local pockets ... cut off from the main communication routes.'
@GuerraenlaUni brilliantly explores the longue durée of state-making and -unmaking in the Horn of Africa & identifies a ‘politics against infrastructure’ combining an ‘anti-infrastructural ethos’ with ‘counterinfrastructural tactics of resistance’: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
@naomipendle, J Bachmann & L Moro also engage the temporality of infra at its frontiers, exploring the ebb & flow of road infrastructure & central state authority in #SouthSudan, a window into a cyclical and seasonal rather than linear political order
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Also check Sarah Turner's (@kiwimontreal) great ethnography on 'slow forms of infrastructural violence', on the dialectic of subtle infrastructural schemes to increase control over ethnic minorities in SE Asian Massif (#Zomia) & ensuing forms of resistance
shorturl.at/aIJS5
Our thinking on how infrastructure, state power, terrain and resistance hang together is obviously heavily influenced by the work of James C. Scott, who correlates rough terrain w/autonomy & resistance and infrastructure w/'seeing like a state'...
...but infrastructural power is not only state power--@silvia_otero85, Simón Uribe & @ipenarandac brilliantly show how infrastructure figures in Colombian insurgent orders by tracing how the #FARC deployed 'guerilla infrastructures'
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Mountains, deserts & swamps are well-studied state-resistant terrains; @EstherMarijnen's study of Lake Edward in #DRC establishes lakes as a rebellious landscape & how rebels & conservation efforts try 'infrastructuring' fishing activities & flows. (SEE shorturl.at/eJMT5)
Finally, @judithverweijen, Saidi Kubuya, @murairi1 & I argue 'roads' in Eastern #DRC defy the distinction of infrastructure = control vs rough terrain = resistance & how infra projects intervene in 'circulation struggles' between rebel & state authorities
shorturl.at/vwxy8

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More from @peer_schouten

Mar 30
We've mapped roadblocks in South Sudan, the DR Congo, and the Central African Republic.

So what about the rest of the world?

A thread with maps & links of the available evidence.

Feel free to add in the comments!
In West Africa, checkpoints are endemic along major trade routes, as discussed in the great research by @ojwalther et al
...This means that a trader taking tomatoes from Techiman in Ghana to Ouagadougou in Burkina pays USD 500 at a whopping 108 checkpoints, or one every 10 km, according to a report by UrbanFoodPlus
Read 27 tweets
Jan 27
Maintenant disponible : mon livre ​​« Roadblock Politics », qui explore comment le contrôle des points étroits le long des routes commerciales constitue un moteur clé du conflit et de la formation de l'État en Afrique centrale, historiquement et contemporainement. THREAD + IMAGES
Il y a tellement de barrières routières dans cette partie du monde qu'il est difficile de trouver une route qui n'en ait pas. Cartographiant de plus de 1.000 d'entre eux, je montre que les barrages routiers incarnent une modalité politique significative - ​​« roadblock politics »
Le livre regorge de récits de rebelles et soldats, camionneurs et contrebandiers, explorateurs et officiers coloniaux, agriculteurs et humanitaires - offrant des points d'entrée dans la riche histoire de la politique des barrages routiers. L'explorateur belge Camille Coquilhat, en service de Léopol
Read 12 tweets
Jan 26
Now available the world across--surreal to hold a copy of my book 'Roadblock Politics', which explores how control over narrow points along trade routes constitutes a key driver of conflict and state formation in Central Africa, historically and contemporary. A THREAD W/IMAGES Image
There are so many roadblocks in this part of the world that it's hard to find a road which doesn't have one. Based on years of work & mapping over a thousand of them, I show that roadblocks embody a meaningful form of politics--roadblock politics Image
Along the way, we meet a colourful cast of people--the book bulges with first-hand accounts of rebels and soldiers, truckers and smugglers, explorers and colonial officers, farmers and aid workers--providing angles into the rich history of roadblock politics. The Belgian Camille Coquilh...
Read 12 tweets

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