Exploring infrastructures of (water) storage in Accra
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Exploring infrastructures of (water) storage in Accra

Accra is a city of storage. While walking across its busy roads, one can spot a myriad of objects used to transport, store and sell water: Water is sold at the traffic light in tiny plastic ‘sachet’ bags, plastic or metal containers mounted on trucks are used to transport and sell bulk water, and residents […]

Temporalities of Crisis: On Cape Town’s Day Zero
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Temporalities of Crisis: On Cape Town’s Day Zero

Temporalities of Crisis: On Cape Town’s Day Zero By: Nate Millington and Suraya Scheba Cape Town is currently facing a water crisis. While Day Zero, the day when the city’s water would have been cut off, is apparently no longer a possibility in 2018, scarcity remains a concern. Arguing that water will only get scarcer […]

Reflections on Situating Urban Political Ecology at the African Centre for Cities’s International Urban Conference
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Reflections on Situating Urban Political Ecology at the African Centre for Cities’s International Urban Conference

As part of the African Centre for Cities‘ International Urban Conference, Kathleen Stokes and Nate Millington organized a series of sessions dedicated to thinking about the relationships between labor, infrastructure, and politics in cities of the global south. We received numerous papers from scholars working in cities all over the world, from Accra to Delhi. […]

North Jakarta: Kampung livelihood responses to infringing infrastructures
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North Jakarta: Kampung livelihood responses to infringing infrastructures

‘Maybe, it’s okay for the big people [rich/elite] to live by the sea. But, for us [kampung residents], our rights have run out.’ –Interview with Kampung resident, 11 July 2017, Kampung Kerang Ijo. For traditional fishing kampung (urban villages) along North Jakarta’s coast, there have always been livelihood uncertainties. Residents daily manage how many fish […]

Such is life in the urban tropics
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Such is life in the urban tropics

In 2015, the National Research Institute of Colombia “Alexander von Humboldt” (commonly known as Instituto Humboldt), promoted Urban Nature: Platform of Experiences, a book project giving voice to diverse sets of knowledge that come into play when addressing and managing biodiversity and ecosystem services in Colombian cities. Over 80 authors presented 40 case studies across […]

CFP AAG 2018: Urban Political Ecology: Bodies, Social Reproduction and Everyday Life
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CFP AAG 2018: Urban Political Ecology: Bodies, Social Reproduction and Everyday Life

Call for Papers: AAG, New Orleans, 10-14 April 2018 *Urban Political Ecology: Bodies, Social Reproduction and Everyday Life* Session organisers: Archie Davies (King’s College London) and James Angel (King’s College London) Please email abstracts (no more than 250 words) to james.angel@kcl.ac.uk by Wednesday 18th October Urban political ecology provides a valuable lens through which to interrogate the […]

The politics of flood mitigation in Jakarta
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The politics of flood mitigation in Jakarta

Jakarta is marked by a paradox: the city suffers from both too much and too little water. During monsoon season, heavy precipitation strains the network of canals and waterways that weave through Jakarta’s urban fabric, threatening to overwhelm the city. Rivers swell, sometimes inundating housing constructed along their banks. Water collects in roads, bringing the […]

Imaginaries on researching and inhabiting a city of sprawling ‘mobile’ infrastructures – Nairobi
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Imaginaries on researching and inhabiting a city of sprawling ‘mobile’ infrastructures – Nairobi

Imagine that you just alighted at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, only 25 minutes from Nairobi’s Central Business District. Obviously, the first thing that you will want to do is get connected. At the airport, there are often a handful of enthusiastic mobile telecommunications agents and personnel that are readily on standby, more than willing to […]

CFP: Working infrastructures in cities of the Global South
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CFP: Working infrastructures in cities of the Global South

Call for Papers: African Centre for Cities International Urban Conference, 1-2 February 2018 Session: Working infrastructures in cities of the Global South Organisers: Kathleen Stokes (University of Manchester) and Nate Millington (University of Cape Town) Infrastructures contribute to the collective flows and metabolisms that produce urban space. From sanitation to transport, electricity to water, these […]

Re-blog: Talk in Cape Town by Erik Swyngedouw “The Return of the Political: Insurgent Architects and The City.”
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Re-blog: Talk in Cape Town by Erik Swyngedouw “The Return of the Political: Insurgent Architects and The City.”

To keep our new site SituatedUPE post up-to-date on our various activities, I am re-posting this blog that announced the talk by Professor Erik Swyngedouw who gave an ACC Special Lecture at The Cape Institute for Architecture (CIFA) on 8 March 2017. We have yet to create the link to the video we did of the event (AAG and […]