Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction. Keywords of the Anthropocene / Kregg Hetherington  1
Part I. Reckoning with Ground
1. The Underground as Infrastructure? Water, Figure/Ground Reversals, and Dissolution in Sardinal / Andrea Ballestero  17
2. Clandestine Infrastructures: Illicit Connectivities in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands / Shaylih Muehlmann  45
3. The Metropolis: The Infrastructure of the Anthropocene / Gastón Gordillo  66
Part II: Lively Infrastructures
4. Dirty Landscapes: How Weediness Indexes State Disinvestment and Global Disconnection / Ashley Carse  97
5. From Edenic Apocalypse to Gardens against Eden: Plants and People in and after the Anthropocene / Natasha Myers  115
6. Leaking Lines / Nikhil Anand  149
Part III: Histories of Progress
7. Low Tide: Submerged Humanism in a Colombian Port / Austin Zeiderman  171
8. Oysterstructure: Infrastructure, Profanation, and the Sacred Figure of the Human / Stephanie Wakefield & Bruce Braun  193
9. Here Comes the Sun?: Experimenting with Cambodian Energy Infrastructures / Casper Bruun Jensen  216
10. The Crisis in Crisis / Joseph Masco  236
References  261
Contributors  293
Index

Stephanie Wakefield

Ashley Carse

Bruce Braun

Joseph Masco

Casper Bruun Jensen

Gastón R. Gordillo

Natasha Myers

Shaylih Muehlmann

Austin Zeiderman

Nikhil Anand

Andrea Ballestero

“When the evidence of pollution and infrastructural decay is abundant what kinds of critical response are relevant? The contributors to this outstanding collection demonstrate how insightful ethnographic research has both the capacity to reveal pervasive and localized symptoms of environmental deterioration and, in the midst of these, is also able to detect the signs of possibility. The result is a compelling intervention in the debate about the planetary condition.” — Andrew Barry, University College, London

"Offering an original approach to contemporary concerns about infrastructures at a time of devastating environmental change, this impressive volume focuses on the political implications of the ways in which environments and infrastructures are conflated or kept apart. Through close attention to the shifting relations between figure and ground on which infrastructural politics ultimately depend, this outstanding intervention will shape critical discussions in anthropology, science and technology studies, and cultural geography." — Penny Harvey, coeditor of, Anthropos and the Material

Permission to Photocopy (coursepacks)

If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;

If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

Permission to Reprint

If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

Images/Art

Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to permissions@dukeupress.edu.
For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department.

Subsidiary Rights/Foreign Translations

If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact permissions@dukeupress.edu. Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.

Disability Requests

Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here.

Rights & Permissions Contact Information

Email: permissions@dukeupress.edu

Email contact for coursepacks: asstpermissions@dukeupress.edu

Fax: 919-688-4574

Mail:
Duke University Press
Rights and Permissions
905 W. Main Street
Suite 18B
Durham, NC 27701

For all requests please include:

1. Author's name. If book has an editor that is different from the article author, include editor's name also.

2. Title of the journal article or book chapter and title of journal or title of book

3. Page numbers (if excerpting, provide specifics)

For coursepacks, please also note: The number of copies requested, the school and professor requesting

For reprints and subsidiary rights, please also note: Your volume title, publication date, publisher, print run, page count, rights sought