Infrastructure Sabotage as Future-Making: The Material and Immaterial Power of Constructive Destruction

Abstract

We propose that a critical examination of infrastructure sabotage should consider its material and immaterial dimension, and its constructive and destructive effects. Combining these two antagonisms, we suggest a matrix of four quadrants that describes (1) deconstructive material effects, (2) constructive material effects, (3) destructive immaterial effects, and (4) constructive immaterial effects of infrastructure sabotage. Through the case study of the Game Galana Dam—a project intended to promote agricultural development in a semi-arid area of Kenya—we explore how marginalised communities perceive such infrastructures as threats to their futures. Through sabotage, they do not only mean to destroy the dam, but also to benefit from it materially. Furthermore, the sabotage is intended to highlight the injustices to which they feel exposed, and demonstrate their power. The sabotage-matrix suggested here helps to reveal otherwise hidden dimensions of infrastructure sabotage, contributing to broader debates about resistance to infrastructure in human geography.