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SUMMARY:Democratising infrastructure? Governing energy democracy in South 
 Africa - Dr Jon Phillips
DTSTART:20201124T130000Z
DTEND:20201124T140000Z
UID:TALK153811@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rogelio Luque-Lora
DESCRIPTION:Where material infrastructure is associated with injustice\, c
 ritical scholarship is often concerned with how infrastructure can be demo
 cratised. Yet\, the relationship between democracy and infrastructure is u
 nderexplored. This paper explores how infrastructure is entwined with demo
 cratic participation and rule by analysing distributed electricity generat
 ion in South Africa. Decentralised solar power is often assumed to enhance
  democratic control of energy systems by empowering citizens as owners of 
 infrastructure and material participants in governance. We describe a more
  complex relationship between infrastructural and democratic change\, of w
 ho and what are governed by whom\, and how. First\, we describe changes in
  South Africa’s model of entrepreneurial urban governance\, in how tensi
 ons between the social and commercial imperatives of local government are 
 managed through infrastructure and space. Second\, we describe the new pol
 itical subjectivity of the ‘prosumer’ (producer-consumer)\, shaped by 
 the governmental tools of infrastructural gatekeepers that coordinate grid
  access and electricity exchange. We find democratic possibilities shaped 
 by the incorporation of new technologies and subjects into existing relati
 ons of infrastructure\, finance and power. We conclude by considering the 
 prospect of material participation in democratic politics that not only pl
 aces technology in the hands of businesses and residents but transforms so
 cio-material relations that maintain injustices of infrastructure.\n
LOCATION:Delivered online via Zoom
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