Security planning, citizenship, and the political temporalities of electricity infrastructure

Abstract

Urban infrastructures are now widely viewed as eminently political socio-technical systems that can govern cities and reorder urban space, but their temporal dimension has only recently been considered as central to this political work. By exploring the transformations of electricity infrastructures in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas over the past ten years (2009-2020), this article examines how infrastructural change is governed through multiple temporal processes. It considers how different urban infrastructure development-related temporal aspects and experiences (simultaneity, speeds, progressivity, and waiting) are connected to the temporality of planning, urban intervention, security, and infrastructure-related rights. Through this analysis, the article aims to theoretically expand our understanding of infrastructures as technologies of government, and to unpack the relationship between planning, infrastructures, and citizenship, beyond the state; a relationship that is not only spatially framed but also temporally governed and experienced.