People as Infrastructure Politics: Designing Nostalgia and Storytelling in Austin’s Downtown
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Keywords: Urban geography, infrastructure, people as infrastructure, resistance, politics, redevelopment
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Colt Pierce, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Abstract
People as infrastructure (Simone, 2004) has been scantly studied in global north cities, but recent scholarship has called for a more robust understanding of this type of infrastructure to be studied as a form of resistive politics (Wilson, 2021). Taking from resistance scholarship (Bayat, 1997, 2004, 2009; Alvarado, 2020), this paper expands on the nuances of people as infrastructure as a form of under the radar resistance. In particular, I excavate people as infrastructure resistive politics at music venues, which are sites where actors form relationships and collaborations to resist the encroachment of redevelopment (Wilson, 2021). Insofar, current scholarship suggests that this resistive politics may be present across cities in the U.S., but more empirical research needs to be conducted for clarification (Wilson, 2021). My research draws from hundreds of hours of ethnographic and hermeneutic research conducted in Austin, Texas’ most commodified and redeveloped areas to uncover the specific ways the relationships and collaborations of people as infrastructure are constructed, highlighting nostalgia and storytelling as key resources for everyday actors and networks. Moreover, this research showcases how these people as infrastructure resistive practices are used as powerful tools to subvert redevelopment machines across urban landscapes in order to claim and (re)produce rhythms of value-laden everyday lives.
People as Infrastructure Politics: Designing Nostalgia and Storytelling in Austin’s Downtown
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Paper Abstract