Infrastructuring aid

Materializing humanitarianism in northern Kenya

Bibliographic Data

ID4753066
AuthorsKevin P Donovan (0000-0002-3922-236X, Programs in Anthropology & History and Science, Technology & Society, University of Michigan, 1029 Tisch Hall, 435 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003, USA, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume33
Issue4
Pages732-748
Publication date2015-08-01
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)
DOI10.1177/0263775815598107
OpenAlexW2239460928
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited49

In numerous African countries humanitarian and development organizations-as well as governments-are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor populations, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required to deploy social protection in one especially remote area: the margins of postcolonial Kenya. Specifically, it documents the often overlooked social and technical construction of the infrastructure necessary so that cash transfers may function with the ease and simplicity for which they are commended. Attention to the practice of 'infrastructuring' offers insights into the tensions and politics of what is rapidly become a key form of transnational govermentality in the global South, showing that humanitarian rationalities and subjects cannot be understood independently of the material networks on which they rely

Business · Cash · Cash transfers · Economic growth · Economics · Function (biology · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Simplicity · Social protection · Work (physics · Engineering · International Development and Aid · Law · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Finance

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