Entrepreneurial infrastructure, genders and sexualities in the off-grid city: water and energy entrepreneurship in Nigeria and South Africa entreprene

在当代非洲城市，所有收入群体的企业和居民都通过混合电网和离网服务的拼凑战略来访问基础设施，特别是在获取水和能源方面。这种混合型基础设施是由多种因素造成的，包括：后殖民城市网络服务的提供参差不齐;与治理薄弱、气候变化和自然资源限制（如干旱、煤炭储量枯竭）有关的质量差和服务中断;高关税（通常作为成本回收战略）;以及推动可持续的“绿色”技术。城市地理学领域的最新研究承认了全球南方普遍服务提供的集中模式的“神话”（例如Jaglin 2015，Coutard和Rutherford 2016），证明了异质基础设施消费和提供更准确地反映了全球南方城市的现实（例如Monstadt和Schramm 2017，Lawhon等人2018，Lemanski 2019）。然而，这种新兴的学术研究忽视了小型和大型商业实体在提供离网形式的基础设施方面的创业活动，这些基础设施从在街上出售的水袋/食堂和小型太阳能发电机到在城市安装的水箱、钻孔、太阳能电池板和柴油发电机。然而，在商业研究和发展经济学中，对这些问题的兴趣越来越大。例如，商业学者越来越感兴趣的是，这些企业家如何以经济上可行的方式以高度可负担的价格提供优质服务，尽管他们面临着相当大的可能性（见Prabhu 2017，Radjou et al. 2012）。与此同时，发展经济学家对城市企业家如何在非洲和亚洲的正式和非正式经济活动之间划定界限越来越感兴趣（见Banerjee and Duflo 2011）。因此，将商业和经济学的见解和方法与城市地理学相结合的机会是存在的。该奖学金将解决以下问题：1。在阿克拉（加纳）和约翰内斯堡（南非），水和能源离网企业家的动机和做法是什么; a）企业规模（例如从街头小贩到大型商业实体，以及B）城市内的位置如何不同？2.企业家如何驾驭正规/非正规经济，如何与其他利益攸关方（消费者、其他企业家、国家）互动？3.国家在管理主要由于国家未能提供基础设施而存在的企业家的活动方面发挥什么作用？国家以何种方式抑制/约束或促进/支持创业？4.如何在全球经济发展叙事中理解离网水和能源部门的创业精神，这些叙事将可持续基础设施定位为日益分散和小规模？5.如何从跨学科的角度重新理论化创业？学生将在阿克拉和约翰内斯堡进行实地考察，与离网水和能源企业家以及负责监管这些行业的国家官员进行定性半结构化访谈。在实地考察期间，学生将得到加纳大学（乔治奥乌苏教授）和威特沃特斯兰德大学（玛戈特·鲁宾博士）同事的支持，他们将把学生融入城市基础设施和创业的学术、政策和实践网络。

In the contemporary African city, businesses and residents across all income groups access infrastructure through bricolage strategies that mix grid and off-grid services, particularly in accessing water and energy. This hybrid infrastructure is attributed to multiple factors including: patchy provision of networked services in post-colonial cities; poor quality and service-disruption connected to weak governance, climate change and natural resource limitations (e.g. drought, depletion of coal reserves); high tariffs (often as a cost recovery strategy); alongside drives towards sustainable 'green' technologies. Recent scholarship within urban geography acknowledges the 'myth' of the centralised model of universal service-provision in the global South (e.g. Jaglin 2015, Coutard and Rutherford 2016), demonstrating heterogenous infrastructure consumption and provision as a more accurate reflection of global South urban realities (e.g. Monstadt and Schramm 2017, Lawhon et al. 2018, Lemanski 2019). However, this emerging scholarship ignores the entrepreneurial activities of small- and large-scale commercial entities in providing off-grid forms of infrastructure that range from water sachets/canteens and small solar generators sold on the streets, to water tanks, boreholes, solar panels and diesel generators installed in (typically wealthy) residential and commercial zones.However, there is increasing interest in these issues in business studies and development economics. For instance, academics in business are increasingly interested in how such entrepreneurs manage to provide quality services at highly affordable prices in financially viable ways, despite the considerable odds they face (see Prabhu 2017, Radjou et al. 2012). Meanwhile, development economists are increasingly interested in how urban entrepreneurs negotiate the boundaries between formal and informal economic activity in Africa and Asia (see Banerjee and Duflo 2011). Opportunities therefore exist to integrate insights and approaches from business and economics with urban geography. The studentship will address the following:1. What are the motivations and practices of water and energy off-grid entrepreneurs in Accra (Ghana) and Johannesburg (South Africa); and how does this differ according to a) business scale (e.g. from street sellers to large commercial entities, and b) location within the city?2. How do entrepreneurs navigate the formal/informal economy, and interact with other stakeholders (consumers, other entrepreneurs, the state)?3. What is the role of the state in regulating the activities of entrepreneurs who exist primarily due to the failures of the state in infrastructure provision? In what ways does the state inhibit/discipline or promote/support entrepreneurship?4. How is entrepreneurship in the off-grid water and energy sector understood within global economic development narratives that position sustainable infrastructure as increasingly decentralised and small-scale? 5. How can entrepreneurship be re-theorised from an inter-disciplinary perspective?The student will undertake fieldwork in Accra and Johannesburg, conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews with off-grid water and energy entrepreneurs as well as state officials responsible for regulating these industries. While in the field, the student will be supported by colleagues at the University of Ghana (Prof George Owusu) and University of Witwatersrand (Dr Margot Rubin), who will integrate the student into academic, policy and practice networks of urban infrastructure and entrepreneurship.