Translating the networked city: adaptation and creativity in urban infrastructures in Africa

转变网络城市：非洲城市基础设施的适应和创造力

• 批准号: 231775011
• 负责人: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Sabine Baumgart
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Chair of Spatial Planning
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Priority Programmes
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2012-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/231775011?language=en
• 关键词: Translating; networked; city; adaptation; creativity

The research project focuses on the translation of the circulating ideal of a modern networked city in the African cities of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya) and the way it shapes both, urban development and the provision of water, sanitation, energy and public transportation infrastructures. This ideal refers to a centralised topology of technical networks ordering and homogenising urban space, the provision of universal and standardised infrastructure services through public utilities, passive users and the close regulation by the state. While formal institutions and planning concepts in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam reflect the ideal of a networked city, these cities display distinct urban morphologies and socio-technical arrangements differing significantly from this hegemonic ideal of urban modernity. Starting out from this apparent contradiction, the research addresses the following hypotheses: 1) the actual urban topologies of infrastructure provision display diverse sociotechnical arrangements emerging at the margins of, in the interstices of, or simply in place of existing (or absent) networked service provision; 2) each of the four sectors under scrutiny in the two cities displays specific dynamics in translating the ideals and planning models of the networked city, ranging from the adaptation to this ideal, its creative appropriation or hybridisation with existing arrangements to its refusal; 3) these translation dynamics significantly shape the fragmentation or cohesion of the resulting topologies of urban service provision; 4) extreme efforts of translation are necessary to suit the particular topologies of African cities, that require more attention by planning theory and practice. By testing these hypotheses through case studies on Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the project will broaden our understanding of infrastructure regimes in African cities, and thereby contribute to both planning theory and urban and social studies of infrastructure. Through the lens of urban infrastructure the project will advance the understanding of adaptation and creativity in (re-)producing African cities.

该研究项目的重点是在非洲城市达累斯萨拉姆（坦桑尼亚）和内罗毕（肯尼亚）的现代网络城市的流通理想的翻译和它的形状，城市发展和水，卫生，能源和公共交通基础设施的提供。这种理想是指技术网络的集中拓扑结构，使城市空间有序化和均匀化，通过公用事业、被动用户和国家的密切监管提供普遍和标准化的基础设施服务。虽然内罗毕和达累斯萨拉姆的正式机构和规划概念反映了网络化城市的理想，但这些城市显示出独特的城市形态和社会技术安排，与这种城市现代性的霸权理想大不相同。从这一明显的矛盾出发，本研究提出了以下假设：1）实际的城市基础设施提供拓扑显示出不同的社会技术安排，这些安排出现在现有基础设施的边缘、空隙或仅仅取代现有基础设施（或不提供）联网服务;（2）两个城市的四个部门都表现出特定的动态，以转化网络化城市的理想和规划模式，从对这一理想的适应，到对这一理想的创造性挪用或与现有安排的混合，再到对这一理想的拒绝：3）这些翻译动态显著地塑造了由此产生的城市服务提供拓扑的碎片化或凝聚力; 4）极端的努力翻译是必要的，以适应非洲城市的特殊拓扑结构，这需要更多的关注规划理论和实践。通过对达累斯萨拉姆和内罗毕的案例研究来检验这些假设，该项目将扩大我们对非洲城市基础设施制度的理解，从而有助于规划理论以及基础设施的城市和社会研究。通过城市基础设施的透镜，该项目将促进对非洲城市（再）生产中的适应性和创造性的理解。