People as Infrastructure

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ID: 338323
2026
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Abstract
Abstract The concept of people as infrastructure brings the open, dynamic, and energetic language of infrastructure into the analysis of social life and social relations. It also places human existence and agency at the center of the socio-material configurations that underpin our urban geographies and politics. It is therefore a recognition of the technical dimensions of people and the sociality embedded in infrastructure. Deeply rooted in empirical research and a radical approach to infrastructure, people as infrastructure is an invitation to examine the recombinations, mutations, and recalibrations through which ordinary people become, alongside diverse materialities, a vital element in the preservation of territories, communities, and networks. As the concept has evolved, it has shed light on the multifaceted politico-infrastructural practices of the subaltern and its contrasting implications for urban life. People as infrastructure has thus proven to be a useful conceptual tool to interrogate both the instances of instrumentalization and exploitation of socio-material configurations and the resourceful, creative, and multiscalar capacity of people’s bodies and networks in city-making. By blurring the boundaries between human and technical life, people as infrastructure helps to inquire about the socio-material interdependencies upon which urban life thrives or withers. This article explores core components and debates underpinning people as infrastructure, whose empirical and theoretical applications continue to stimulate our social, infrastructural, and political imagination.
Reference Key
openalex_W7225151111 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors León Felipe Téllez Contreras
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Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/9780197852712.003.0117
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197852712.003.0117
Keywords Keywords not found

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