History of Infrastructures

Subsequent to the financial crisis triggered by the Great Depression of 1929, Turkey, akin to numerous other nations, embraced an economic policy characterized by statism and protectionism. During the 1930s, a
process of nationalization unfolded, wherein infrastructure enterprises under foreign ownership underwent a transition to state control. This nationalization initiative primarily targeted pivotal sectors, including
railways, tramways, ports, gas, electricity, water, and other municipal services that encompassed energy and transportation. This article aims to examine the ideological and social dimensions of infrastructure projects by focusing on public service projects of the early Republican era, such as water supply and distribution, which were the primary life source of Istanbul, and the tramway system, which played a key role in intra-city transportation. The article highlights the moments of agreement and conflict between the
municipality and the privileged companies implementing these projects, as well as the reflections of these
projects in daily life. Opposing the dominant narrative that presents infrastructure projects as a glamorous tale of success and progress, it argues for the consideration of everyday life experiences to reveal the spatial and social inequalities associated with infrastructure services and usage within the city. It asserts that infrastructure should be approached as a complex network of relationships that not only makes visible the
disparities but also generates new forms of living cultures and new forms of crime, encompassing both hope and disappointment.

Envisioning Work aims for an interpretation of the visual not as simply an illustration, a “reflection” of a context, or a passive tool of documentation. Rather, the series strives to emphasize the critical dimensions of visual culture and how the structural analyses of it – across media, formats, and practices – can play an important role in interrogating, conceptualizing, communicating, and/or understanding labor-related issues, contexts, and practices. In this piece, we interviewed Sanaz Sohrabi, a doctoral candidate at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, Montréal. Her doctoral project looks at how visual representations of oil have changed postcolonial sovereignty and resource nationalism in Iran over time. She is also an artist and filmmaker. In relation to her project, she prepares a trilogy of essay films, the first episode of which, One Image, Two Acts, has been internationally screened and exhibited since November 2020 and has been widely acclaimed. The second film in this trilogy, Scenes of Extraction, was commissioned by Montréal’s VOX Centre de l’image contemporaine and premiered at the Berlinale Forum Expanded 2023. Sanaz Sohrabi was a participant of the Transregional Academy Fragment – Power – Public: Narrative, Authority, and Circulation, held in Beirut in 2019 in the framework of Europe in the Middle East – the Middle East in Europe (EUME).

ISBN: 978-3-7065-6013-9
Tourismus polarisiert. Er verbindet und trennt. In vielen Alpenregionen ist der Tourismus – mit all seinen positiven und negativen Auswirkungen – allgegenwärtig. Die transformative Kraft des Tourismus zeigt sich deutlich am Beispiel alpiner Gebiete wie Salzburg und Savoyen, die sich durch eine mehr als 200 Jahre währende Tourismus-Tradition auszeichnen. Fragen wie „Wem gehören die Alpen?“ und „Sollen sie bewahrt oder erschlossen werden?“ bewegten bereits im 19. Jahrhundert die Gemüter. Ein historischer Vergleich der Tourismusgeschichte der beiden doch so unterschiedlichen Regionen Salzburg und Savoyen fördert spannende Gemeinsamkeiten zutage.

https://www.studienverlag.at/produkt/6013/alpen-zwischen-erschliessung-und-naturschutz/

This paper outlines the evolution of my work to narrate the history of Aadhaar, India's biometrics-based national identification infrastructure, in one of my dissertation chapters. I describe how and why this seemingly simple task of narrating a 20-year history of an infrastructure eventually expanded to cover a 200-year history of infrastructuring unique identification of residents in colonial and postcolonial India. I conclude by arguing that focusing on histories of infrastructuring is not only a useful method and heuristic to historize information infrastructures, but also an effective tactic to leverage the past to inform their design, implemention, and use.