“We usually have a bit of flood once a week”: conceptualising the infrastructural rhythms of urban floods in Malate, Manila

Abstract

In Malate, a district of Manila, flooding is a frequent occurrence. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with Malate inhabitants to approach urban floods as more than discrete disastrous episodes which interfere with a pre-existing normality. The paper employs a Levebvrian conceptualisation of rhythm and entrainment, while also offering reflections on the limits of its relevance to global South cities. Theorised from Malate, urban floods point to the mutual constitution of the social-technical-natural relations of urban infrastructures, and the on-going disruptive rhythms of floodwater. We argue that the rhythms of floodwater can be glimpsed at the intersections of different yet interrelated urban infrastructures. We focus on the infrastructures identified by research participants as pertinent to flood risk in Malate: drainage, waste management, and mobility. By tracing the spatial intersections and temporal rhythms of infrastructurally mediated urban floods, this paper contributes to scholarship on the situated hydrosocial relations of everyday life.