Introduction

Abstract

Infrastructures are both durable yet fragile, hidden but ever present, solidly embedded in the collective world yet open to speculation and uncertainty. The essays in this section of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East volume 34, number 3, explore the many ways in which, whether as scholars or as political subjects, we think about forms of infrastructure and make them a focus of collective life. The essays also consider how infrastructures can enable, transform, or inhibit ways of thinking and living collectively.