Where there is fire, there is politics

Ungovernability and Material Life in Urban South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID2435537
AuthorsKerry Ryan Chance (Harvard University Press, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume30
Issue3
Pages394-423
Publication date2015-08-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCultural Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0886-7356 • E-ISSN: 1548-1360
PublisherAmerican Anthropological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.14506/ca30.3.03
OpenAlexW1917136690
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited46

This article combines theories of liberal governance, material life, and popular politics to examine the unruly force of fire in state-citizen struggles. Tracking interactions between state agents and activist networks during South Africa's celebrated democratic transition, I analyze how the urban poor leverage the material properties of fire to secure techno-institutional claims to energy infrastructure, and more broadly to political inclusion and economic redistribution. I highlight how fire, as a social and historical as well as a chemical process, becomes a staging ground for the promise and endangerment of infrastructure. Approaching fire as intertwined with power, I argue, illuminates how those living on the margins of the city come to inhabit political roles that transform economic relationships in the context of liberalism

Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Corporate governance · Democracy · Economics · Geography · Leverage (statistics · Liberalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Redistribution (election · Sociology · State (computer science · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · South African History and Culture · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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