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| Semester | fall semester 2020 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Johannes Schubert (jon.schubert@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This course investigates the various ways in which the critical social sciences have sought to apprehend infrastructures as political projects and forms of power and control, but also as technologies of enchantment and objects of desire and aspiration. We also examine their flipside and their affective charge as melancholic objects of ruination, materialising the debris of capitalism and collapsed futures. Drawing on close readings and discussions of texts mainly from anthropology, but also from science and technology studies, history, geography, and urban studies, students should come out with a firm knowledge of the social and political potency and supposed developmental benefits of infrastructures, and the different conceptual approaches to make sense of them. We will look at roads, ports/airports, power plants and dams, as well as urban housing projects, and reflect on how visual methods can help us analyse and interpret them. We will think about the rise of Dubai Modernity and World Class cities by looking at ambitious urban development projects such as the construction of ‘new centralities’, and grand ‘waterfronts’. We will also look at the material and aesthetic qualities of different building materials like wood, stone and cement, and at the techno-politics of service infrastructures such as electricity, water, and sewage. |
| Learning objectives | Students acquire a firm knowledge of the social and political potency and supposed developmental benefits of infrastructures, and the different conceptual approaches to make sense of them. |
| Bibliography | Carse, Ashley. 2016. ‘Keyword: Infrastructure. How a Humble French Engineering Term Shaped the Modern World.’ In Infrastructures and Social Complexity: A Companion, edited by Penelope Harvey, Casper Bruun Jensen, and Atsuro Morita, 1 edition, 27–39. London ; New York: Routledge. Nugent, Paul. 2018. ‘Africa’s Re-Enchantment with Big Infrastructure: White Elephants Dancing in Virtuous Circles?’ In Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa. Beyond the Resource Curse, edited by Jon Schubert, Ulf Engel, and Elísio Macamo, 22–40. Routledge Studies in African Development. London: Routledge. Hetherington, Kregg. 2014. ‘Waiting for the Surveyor: Development Promises and the Temporality of Infrastructure’. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 19 (2): 195–211. |
| Comments | Jon Schubert is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Brunel University, London (The Afterlives of Oil-Backed Infrastructures in an Angolan Port City). He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology at the Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh in 2014 (Working the System: Amnesia, Affect, and the Aesthetics of Power in the “New Angola”). |
| Admission requirements | This course is primarily open to MA-level students in African Studies, Sociology, and Social Anthropology, but also to motivated students from Critical Urbanisms, Cultural Anthropology, Global and European Studies, and Human Geography). An online participation is possible. |
| Course application | Sign up via ADAM; first intro session on 25 September, Rheinsprung 21. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
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No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften M.A. (Master's degree subject: Political Science) Modul: Fachkompetenz Globaler Wandel (Master's degree subject: Geography) Modul: Fields: Environment and Development (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Governance and Politics (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Theory and General Anthropology (Master's degree subject: Anthropology) Modul: Ungleichheit, Konflikt, Kultur (Master's degree subject: Sociology) Module: Conflicts and Peacebuilding (Master's degree program: Changing Societies: Migration – Conflicts – Resources) Module: Projects and Processes of Urbanization (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms (Start of studies before 01.08.2020)) Module: The Urban across Disciplines (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) Vertiefungsmodul Global Europe: Staatlichkeit, Entwicklung und Globalisierung (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | This is a discussion seminar, and your learning success depends on commitment and involvement of all participants. This only works if you arrive well-prepared to actively participate in the discussions and listen to your peers. The reading list includes two core readings per session that all students are expected to read and prepare for discussion — these are normally journal articles or book chapters, though in some sessions we will rely on shorter, alternative forms of conveying analytical insights to academic and non-academic audiences (online resources, shorter posts, etc.). In addition, students will lead the weekly discussion based on a selection of additional readings. Finally, the syllabus includes suggestions for additional readings (incl. some non-African case studies) for those wishing to develop specific topics in greater depth (for their essay, for example). Students will be assessed based on their participation to discussions in class, including their reading notes/response papers (25%); their short presentations/leading of the discussion (25%); and a final 2,000-word photo essay (50%). |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Soziologie |