Co-producing maintenance and repair: Hybrid labor relations in water supply in Accra, Ghana

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Access to water supply is still a problem in African cities. This has sparked discussions about how small-scale private actors could collaborate with the state to improve water supply. However, scholarly discussions on water supply have hardly examined the role of such actors in maintenance and repair. This paper shows how water infrastructures are maintained and repaired through hybrid labor relations between private and public actors where formal and informal practices are combined. These findings allow us to shift conceptualization in maintenance and repair beyond the state and explain how private actors enact and challenge the state’s power through maintenance and repair practices.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)280–302
Number of pages23
JournalUrban Research and Practice
Volume17
Issue number2
Early online date21 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

This work was supported by the [German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)] under Grant [RF:91688752] within the Research Training Group "Critical infrastructures: construction, functional crises, and protection in cities (KRITIS)" at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. The researchers also received financial support from the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, for which we are grateful

FundersFunder number
Universiteit Utrecht
Technical University of Darmstadt
Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning
KRITIS
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst91688752

    Keywords

    • informality
    • infrastructure
    • maintenance
    • repair
    • water supply

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