Infrastructure (ANTH161a)
Instructor: Pascal Menoret ([email protected])
Office: Lemberg 227
Class hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-3:20pm
Classroom: Shiffman 122
Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:20pm-4pm
There’s a problem with infrastructure – electricity networks, water supply systems,
pipelines, ports, roads, and railroads. Most of us would agree that infrastructure should
be a public thing, serve society, and allow for better life, communication, and activity.
Yet infrastructures are often hidden, subterranean, and therefore prone to exploitation
and hijacking. The anthropology of infrastructure aims in part at making it more visible
and at deciphering the complex interaction between things, society, and politics. But
anthropologists end up unearthing more than utility networks and urbanism plans. They
stumble upon the very power of inanimate things to orient our experiences, from the most
intimate (having sex) to the least material of them (browsing the internet). From politics
to ethics and back, this course will explore our relationship to infrastructure. There is no
prerequisite for this class, but students are expected to conduct intensive fieldwork on
one piece of Boston infrastructure.
1. Teaching and Learning Methodologies: This course is organized around readings,
lectures, classroom discussions, and fieldwork. The required readings are often difficult,
and the aim of the course is to help you understand the broader anthropological,
historical, and political debates that our authors are part of, and to offer a lucid
interpretation of their texts and positions. Close reading of the texts, class discussion, and
field research are at the core of this course’s methodology: you are expected to read all
the week’s texts in advance, to think about them carefully, to participate actively in our
discussions, and to use what you’ve learned from both the texts and the discussion in
your field research. The learning outcomes will be assessed through in class participation,
weekly reflections, three written assignments, and one oral presentation. You are
expected to attend all classes and to engage in critical discussion and field research.
Submit work on time. You must complete all assigned coursework to pass the course. It
is your responsibility to submit all assignments before the due date by email. No
extension will be granted. Work not turned in, or turned in after the due date without a
documented explanation will receive an F.
No tolerance for plagiarism. Academy integrity is the acknowledgment of what we owe
to other writers and researchers. Plagiarism is the non-acknowledgment of our sources
and ranges from improperly quoting to paraphrasing to copying an author without
admitting it. Plagiarism will not be tolerated, and all cases will be submitted to the
university. For more information on academic integrity at Brandeis University, see:
https://lts.brandeis.edu/courses/instruction/academic-integrity/index.html
No electronic devices. Studies have shown that we perform better, as thinkers and
writers, with pen and paper than when offered the possibility to check our Twitter and
Facebook feeds. Let’s be better thinkers. No use of laptops, tablets, or cellphones is
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allowed in class. Have doubts? Read this: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/thecase-for-banning-laptops-in-the-classroom
Address your concerns and issues during office hours. If you experience difficulties
with the readings and the assignments, see me as soon as possible. Office hours are
opportunities to discuss the course material, get my advice and help on how to best work
on assignments, and inform me of issues you may have with the course.
2. Learning Outcomes: There is no prerequisite for this course. You will learn how to
conduct fieldwork on infrastructure in Boston. You will acquire knowledge of most of the
prominent issues related to the anthropology of infrastructure, with a focus on the politics
of infrastructure. Under my supervision, you will conduct fieldwork, record at least one
interview, and turn fieldwork material into successful assignments.
3. Disabilities: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis
University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class,
please see me immediately.
4. Statement of time required: Success in this 4-credit course is based on the
assumption that you will spend a weekly average of 9 hours of time outside of class in
preparing and completing course assignments.
5. Assignments:
Your success in this class hinges on the completion of a fieldwork project on one piece of
Boston infrastructure. Therefore, you are strongly advised to keep close records of your
field research in the form of field notes. I recommend you immediately purchase a
notebook that you’ll take to the field and in which you’ll write down your notes and
observations. These notes will be crucial to the success of all your assignments.
a) In class participation. (10% of the final grade)
b) Weekly reflection: you will write a short reflection on the week’s readings and on
your field research. Feel free to discuss what intrigued you, interested you or
shocked you most in the texts, and to describe your week’s most striking or telling
fieldwork moment. Any length between one paragraph and one page. Assignment
due every Monday at midnight. (10% of the final grade)
c) First assignment (around 1,500 words): you will submit your first field notes
about the piece of infrastructure you are studying this semester. Assignment due
on February 14 before class. (20% of the final grade)
d) Second assignment (around 2,000 words): using fieldwork data and secondary
literature, you will write a brief history of the infrastructure you decided to study
during the semester. Assignment due on March 14 before class. (20% of the
final grade)
e) Third assignment (around 3,000 words): you will conduct a recorded interview
about the infrastructure you are studying this semester. We will discuss in class
the choice of your interviewee and the methodology. Your paper will be an edited
transcription of the interview (around 2,500 words) following an introduction
(around 500 words). Assignment due at the end of the semester. (30% of the
final grade)
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f) Oral presentation: you will present your fieldwork project. Presentations are 10
min. long and will be followed by a short Q&A session. Presentations on April
20, 25, 27 and May 2. (10% of the final grade)
6. Class texts:
During the semester you’ll read four books from cover to cover:
- Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Aldine
Transaction 1970), 232 p.
- Bruno Latour, Aramis or the Love of Technology (Harvard University Press
1996), 301 p.
- Nicole Starosielski, The Undersea Network (Duke University Press 2015), 312 p.
- Tung-Hui Fu, A Prehistory of the Cloud (MIT Press 2015), 148 p.
In addition to these four books, you’ll read a few articles on infrastructure:
- Brian Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” Annual Review of
Anthropology, 42, 2013, p. 427-343.
- Susan Leigh Start, “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American Behavioral
Scientist, 43-3, 1999, p. 377-391.
- James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed (Yale University Press 1998), introduction and chapter 1,
p. 1-52.
- James Ferguson, “Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global
Capital in Neoliberal Africa,” American Anthropologist, 107-3, 2005, p. 377-382.
- Robert Vitalis, “Black Gold, White Crude: An Essay on American
Exceptionalism, Hierarchy, and Hegemony in the Gulf,” Diplomatic History, 262, 2002, p. 185-213.
7. Additional bibliography:
To kick-start and fuel your field research on Boston, make sure to consult these:
- Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (Belknap Press 1968)
- Alex Krieger, David Cobb and Amy Turner (eds.), Mapping Boston (MIT Press
1999)
- Michael Rawson, Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston (Harvard
University Press 2010)
On the theory and anthropology of infrastructure, keep these handy:
- Marcel Mauss, Manual of Ethnography (Berghahn Books 2007), in particular
chapters 4 (“Technology”) and 6 (“Economic Phenomena”)
- Claude Lévi-Strauss, Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss (Routledge and
Kegan Paul 1987)
- Clifford Geertz, “Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou” in Clifford Geertz,
Hildred Geertz and Lawrence Rosen (eds.), Meaning and Order in Moroccan
Society (Cambridge University Press 1979), p. 123-235.
- Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France,
1978-1979 (Palgrave MacMillan 2008)
- Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Harvard University Press 1993)
Finally, here are miscellaneous articles on specific infrastructures; they might inspire you
in the course of fieldwork:
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James Ferguson, “Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global
Capital in Neoliberal Africa,” American Anthropologist, 107-3, 2005, p. 377-382.
Julia Elyachar, “Phatic Labor, Infrastructure, and the Question of Empowerment
in Cairo,” American Ethnologist, 37-3, 2010, p. 452-464.
David McMermott Hughes, “Hydrology of Hope: Farm Dams, Conservation, and
Whiteness in Zimbabwe,” American Ethnologist, 33-2, 2006, p. 269-287.
Dimitris Dalaakoglou and Penny Harvey, “Roads and Anthropology:
Ethnographic Perspective on Space, Time, and (Im)mobility,” Mobilities, 7-4,
2012, p. 459-465.
Naveeda Khan, “Flaws in the Flow: Roads and their Modernity in Pakistan,”
Social Text, 24-4, 2006, p. 87-113.
Nikhil Anand, “Pressure: The Polytechnics of Water Supply in Mumbai,”
Cultural Anthropology, 26-4, 2011, p. 542-564.
Helga Tawil-Souri, “Qalandia Checkpoint as Space and Nonplace,” Space and
Culture, 14-4, 2011, p. 4-26.
Helga Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s High-Tech Enclosure,” Journal
of Palestine Studies, 41-2, 2012, p. 27-43.
Laleh Khalili, “Fighting over Drones,” Middle East Report, 264, 2012, p. 18-21.
Dennis Rodgers, “Haussmannization in the Tropics: Abject Urbanism and
Infrastructural Violence in Nicaragua,” Ethnography, 13-4, 2012, p. 413-438.
8. Course Schedule:
Week 1 – Why an Ethnography of Infrastructure?
January 17
Introduction
January 19
Brian Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” Annual Review
of Anthropology, 42, 2013, p. 427-343.
Susan Leigh Star, “The Ethnography of Infrastructure,” American
Behavioral Scientist, 43-3, 1999, p. 377-391.
Week 2 – Tearoom Trade, 1
January 24
Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places
(Aldine Transaction 1970), chapters 1-2, p. 1-44.
January 26
Tearoom Trade, chapters 3-4, p. 45-80.
Week 3 – Tearoom Trade, 2
January 31
Tearoom Trade, chapters 5-6, p. 81-130.
February 2
Tearoom Trade, chapters 7-8, p. 131-166.
Week 4 – Tearoom Trade, 3
February 7
Tearoom Trade, postscripts and retrospects, p. 167-232.
February 9
James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the
Human Condition Have Failed (Yale University Press 1998), introduction
and chapter 1, p. 1-52.
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James Ferguson, “Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and
Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa,” American Anthropologist, 107-3,
2005, p. 377-382.
Week 5 – Aramis, 1
February 14 Bruno Latour, Aramis or the Love of Technology (Harvard University
Press 1996), preface, prologue and chapter 1, p. 1-50.
February 16 Aramis, chapters 2-3, p. 51-123.
Week 6 – Aramis, 2
February 28 Aramis, chapters 4-5, p. 124-202.
March 2
Aramis, chapter 6, p. 203-250.
Week 7 – Aramis, 3
March 7
Aramis, chapter 7 and epilogue, p. 251-301.
March 9
Robert Vitalis, “Black Gold, White Crude: An Essay on American
Exceptionalism, Hierarchy, and Hegemony in the Gulf,” Diplomatic
History, 26-2, 2002, p. 185-213.
Week 8 – The Undersea Network, 1
March 14
Nicole Starosielski, The Undersea Network (Duke University Press 2015),
preface and chapter 1, p. 1-63
March 16
The Undersea Network, chapters 2-3, p. 64-137.
Week 9 – The Undersea Network, 2
March 21
The Undersea Network, chapters 4-5, p. 138-197.
March 23
The Undersea Network, chapter 6 and conclusion, p. 198-234.
Week 10 – Prehistory of the Cloud, 1
March 28
Tung-Hui Fu, A Prehistory of the Cloud (MIT Press 2015), introduction
and chapters 1, p. 1-36
March 30
A Prehistory of the Cloud, chapter 2, p. 37-78.
Week 11 – Prehistory of the Cloud, 2
April 4
A Prehistory of the Cloud, chapter 3, p. 79-110
April 6
A Prehistory of the Cloud, chapter 4 and conclusion, p. 111-148.
Week 12 – Presentations
April 20
Final presentations
April 25
Final presentations
Week 13 – Presentations
April 27
Final presentations
May 2
Final presentations
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