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

该研究项目的重点是在达累斯萨拉姆（坦桑尼亚）和内罗毕（肯尼亚）等非洲城市翻译现代网络化城市的循环理想，以及它如何塑造城市发展和提供水、卫生、能源和公共交通基础设施。这种理想指的是技术网络的集中拓扑结构，使城市空间有序和同质化，通过公用事业、被动用户和国家的密切监管提供通用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制度和规划概念反映了网络化城市的理想，但这些城市表现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有很大不同。从这一明显的矛盾出发，本研究提出了以下假设：1)基础设施提供的实际城市拓扑显示出不同的社会技术安排，这些安排出现在网络服务提供的边缘、间隙或仅仅取代现有的（或不存在的）网络服务提供；2)两个城市的四个部门在翻译网络化城市的理想和规划模式方面都表现出特定的动态，从适应这种理想，创造性地挪用或与现有安排混合到拒绝；3)这些转换动态显著地塑造了城市服务提供拓扑结构的碎片化或凝聚力；4)翻译需要付出极大的努力，以适应非洲城市的特殊拓扑结构，这需要更多的规划理论和实践的关注。通过对达累斯萨拉姆和内罗毕的案例研究来验证这些假设，该项目将扩大我们对非洲城市基础设施制度的理解，从而为规划理论和基础设施的城市和社会研究做出贡献。通过城市基础设施的视角，该项目将促进对（再）生产非洲城市的适应和创造力的理解。

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.