Discursive Infrastructure: Enabling Epistemological Movements in Post-Colonial African Cities

基础设施是城市不平等的核心（Pieterse et al., 2018）。Amin（2014）认为“我们正在看到一种新的思维类型的兴起，这种思维类型通过城市的物质基础设施来叙述城市的社会生活”。然而，尽管基础设施现在日益成为发展研究中城市研究的中心，但令人惊讶的是，很少有人关注基础设施与话语之间的联系。在我之前的研究中，我证明了城市政策造成了基础设施的不公平空间分布。这一论点强调了政策话语在塑造城市现实中的作用。通过我的研究，我提出了“话语基础设施”的概念，以描述话语与城市物质条件之间的关系（Le Thierry d’ennequin, 2020）。这个研究项目的目的是将这个新概念理论化，作为非洲城市主义的后殖民方法。我对“话语基础设施”的探索将开启新的切入点，通过这些切入点，城市政策话语可以被理解和挑战。作为案例研究，本研究项目将重点关注基础设施系统的政策话语，这些政策话语继续使当今非洲城市的空间不平等具体化（Graham & Marvin, 2001: 42； Pieterse等人，2018:160;Myers, 2003; Becker, 2020）。

Infrastructure is central to urban inequality (Pieterse et al., 2018). Amin (2014) has argued that "we are seeing the rise of a new genre of thinking that narrates the social life of a city through its material infrastructure". Yet while infrastructure is now increasingly at the centre of research on cities in Development Studies, there has been surprisingly little focus on the connections between infrastructure and discourse. In my previous research I demonstrated that urban policy creates unjust spatial distributions of infrastructure. This argument emphasised the agency of policy discourse in shaping urban realities. Through my research I developed the notion of "discursive infrastructure" to describe the relationship between discourse and the material conditions of cities (Le Thierry d'Ennequin, 2020). The purpose of this proposed research project is to theorise this novel concept as a post-colonial approach to African urbanism. My exploration of "discursive infrastructure" will unlock new entry points through which urban policy discourse can be understood and challenged. As a case study, this research project will focus on policy discourse of basic infrastructure systems that continue to materialise the spatial inequalities of African cities today (Graham & Marvin, 2001: 42; Pieterse et al., 2018: 160; Myers, 2003; Becker, 2020).