Asphalt, Water, and Power: The Politics of Infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa

The politics of infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa share some common historical, socio-economic, and political organizational structures. Infrastructure is a space of domination and contestation, where authoritarian regimes or colonial powers exert control over societies. This roundtable takes the politics of infrastructure as a starting point to examine relations of power, repression, and contestation in the region. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that engages political science, anthropology, and urban studies, this roundtable examines how both physical and virtual infrastructures are sites of political and societal contestations, and how relations of power are established and challenged within these artefacts. Essays examine the transformative effects of infrastructures, mobility, and digitization on societies and the environment. Authors analyze the fundamental changes in relations of power entailed by infrastructure, from times of peace to times of war and genocide.