Death traps

Holes in urban India

Bibliographic Data

ID4476392
AuthorsHarris Solomon (0000-0002-8792-469X, Duke University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume39
Issue3
Pages423-440
Publication date2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0263775821989700
OpenAlexW3131376089
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited63

This article is an ethnographic study of potholes in roads in urban India. The article describes different forms of attention to potholes, including cases of media advocacy, clinical reflections on injury and attempts by an accident survivor to document danger on the roads. Throughout, it argues for attention to the embodiment of infrastructure, and particularly, how people move through infrastructures. The article stems from a broader research project about traumatic injury from traffic accidents, many due to potholes. Taking these cases as sentinels of urban wound culture, the article asks: What if urban theory took wounding as a characteristic feature of everyday urbanism? What might this mean for studies of infrastructure's affordances, risks and embodiment

Aesthetics · Affordance · Archaeology · Art · Ethnography · Sociology · Urbanism · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Psychology · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Architecture