Working with water: a dialogue on care, infrastructure and labour

Abstract

In this contribution, we show the significance of care as a lens for understanding infrastructuring labour that is the work of operating, maintaining and repairing infrastructure. We do this focusing on water infrastructure and drawing from scholarship on feminist Science and Technology Studies, infrastructural labour geography and critical water research. We propose dialoguing among researchers as an experimental practice for fostering situated learning about infrastructuring labour across sites and infrastructure. More specifically, we examine the work of tanker drivers in supplying water in Accra (Ghana) and of workers and engineers in regulating water flows along the transboundary Moselle River (Germany, Luxembourg, France). Looking at care as response-abilities, tinkering and ethico-political commitments, we show infrastructuring labour is about planned and improvised interventions that are carried out involving material work and technical knowledge as well as social and emotional work.