A Study of Networked Infrastructures that Supply Water for Both Shipping and Municipal Use

该博士后奖学金将支持巴拿马水利基础设施的研究；它特别关注为航运和市政供水的网络基础设施。本项目分为安装、维护和使用三个阶段。每个阶段都是根据一个核心问题构建的。第一阶段探讨连接运河与两端城市巴拿马和科隆的水管理基础设施如何影响系统发展和区域水分配问题。这个问题将通过美国和巴拿马档案馆的历史研究得到解答。第二个问题是，在研究区域内管理水资源的两个机构之间，基础设施维护的期望和实践是如何比较的。这个问题将通过参与观察和对两个水管理机构的工作人员和行政人员的访谈来回答。第三个问题是城市用水用户如何看待供水问题并制定家庭战略来应对这些问题。这个问题将通过半结构化访谈和在巴拿马城市的参与性观察来回答。该项目将在三个领域促进奖学金的发展。它将以一种新颖的方式合并STS在基础设施和政治生态学方面的奖学金，从而形成一个新的、强大的框架，这将有利于这两个领域。它将利用新的框架来推进新兴科学与技术研究子领域——水研究的学术研究。最后，它将提供证据，更好地理论化基础设施如何在地理和文化差异中发挥作用，阐明当不定期维护和服务中断成为日常生活的一部分时，这些系统是如何工作的。潜在的广泛影响近年来，基础设施已成为经济焦虑、政治斗争和生态危机的明显场所。世界各地的社区都面临着与基础设施老化和国家预算短缺相关的服务提供问题。这项研究将在这些条件下产生关于技术、社会和生态的新知识，这些知识与工程师、规划师和管理人员有关，他们寻求以更文化上合适、公平和可持续的方式设计和管理社会技术系统。该项目将阐明城市用水问题是如何产生和如何改善的。研究结果将通过学术会议、同行评议期刊的出版物、公共研讨会和工程专业学生的培训传播给众多受众。

IntroductionThis postdoctoral fellowship will support research on water infrastructure in Panama; it focuses specifically on the networked infrastructures that supplies water for both shipping and municipal use. The project has three phases focusing respectively on installation, maintenance, and use. Each phase is structured in terms of a core question. The first phase asks how the water management infrastructure that links the canal with the two cities at its endpoints, Panama and Colon, shaped system development and regional water distribution problems. It will be answered through historical research at archives in the US and Panama. The second asks how expectations and practices of infrastructure maintenance compare between the two institutions that manage water in the study region. This question will be answered through participant observation and interviews with work crews and administrators at both water management institutions. The third asks how urban water users perceive delivery problems and develop household strategies to cope with them. This question will be answered through semi-structured interviews and participant observation in urban Panama.Intellectual MeritThe project will advance scholarship in three areas. It will merge STS scholarship on infrastructure and political ecology in a novel manner resulting in a new, powerful framework that will benefit both fields. It will utilize the new framework to advance scholarship in the emerging Science and Technology Studies subfield, Water Studies. Finally, it will provide evidence to better theorize how infrastructure functions across geographical and cultural differences, illuminating how these systems work when irregular maintenance and service interruption are a part of everyday life. Potential Broader ImpactsInfrastructures have become visible sites of economic anxiety, political struggle, and ecological crisis in recent years. Communities worldwide face problems of service delivery associated with aging infrastructure and state budgetary shortfalls. The research will generate new knowledge about technology, society, and ecology under these conditions that is relevant to engineers, planners, and administrators who seek to design and manage socio-technical systems in more culturally appropriate, equitable, and sustainable ways. The project will illuminate how urban water problems are produced and might be ameliorated. Findings will be disseminated to multiple audiences through academic conferences, publications in peer-reviewed journals, public workshops, and the training of engineering students.