The 'Infrastructural Turn' in Political Ecology and Urban Studies

Theorists from across the humanities and social sciences are increasingly engaged with the political question of infrastructure. These are the pipes, roads, ports, power lines, and rail lines that facilitate the circulation of goods and services - and the realisation of their value and utility. Turning from traditional infrastructural questions of engineering and feasibility, scholars have asked what and how infrastructures reveal about socio-political, ecological, and spatial life.

As a part of this process of inquiry, the concept of infrastructure itself can be creatively extended and transformed to meet the challenge of explaining how and why spatially extensive technologies of provisioning operate in political contexts. This panel is assembled to discuss the ‘infrastructural turn’ in general, and in relation to the fields of political ecology, urban studies, and development studies. The panel is composed of scholars from King’s Geography and Dr Malini Ranganthan from American University in Washington DC, whose research examines urban infrastructures and environmental justice in the US and India.

Human Geography Seminar Series

The Department of Geography at King’s College London is pleased to host its Human Geography Seminar Series for this academic year. The Series brings together the interests and expertise of the Contested Development, Risk and Society, and Urban Futures Research Domains and the King’s Climate and King’s Water Activity Hubs to explore new frontiers in research and policy on human-environment interactions.

Find out about other seminars in the series here.