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Life at the urban margins: sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison

Lancione, M.; McFarlane, C.

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Authors

M. Lancione



Abstract

How is life at the urban margins made and remade? In this paper, we examine this question in relation to ‘sanitation urbanism’, and through attention to what we call ‘infra-making’, defined as the interstitial labour of human and non-human agencies and atmospheres that take place in the production of forms of sanitation. We do so through close engagement to sanitation at the margins of two very different cities across the global North–South divide: Turin and Mumbai. Despite the apparent impossibility of comparing such different cities, in the paper we develop a form of ‘experimental comparison’ that is oriented at understanding the everyday making of specific urban processes around urban sanitation. We argue that a comparative focus on how urban life at the margins is made and remade is important for critical urbanism. Our experimental comparison leads us to a discussion of the relationship between specification and generalisation, in which the latter is positioned not as an end-point but as an informant serving to enlighten understanding and intervention in specific contexts.

Citation

Lancione, M., & McFarlane, C. (2016). Life at the urban margins: sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison. Environment and Planning A, 48(12), 2402-2421. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16659772

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Jul 28, 2016
Publication Date Dec 1, 2016
Deposit Date Jun 29, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Environment and Planning A
Print ISSN 0308-518X
Electronic ISSN 1472-3409
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 48
Issue 12
Pages 2402-2421
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16659772

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Copyright Statement
Lancione, M. and McFarlane, C. (2016) 'Life at the urban margins : sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison.', Environment and planning A., 48 (12). pp. 2402-2421. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.





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