Budka, P., & Amatulli, G. (2025). Introduction: Narratives and temporalities of infrastructure in Canada. Anthropologica, 67(1). https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica67120252794
The openly accessible introduction to the Special Issue “Narratives and Temporalities of Infrastructure: The Canadian Experience,” which I co-authored with Giuseppe Amatulli for Anthropologica, outlines the conceptual framework and scope of the collection. We reflect on how infrastructures are narrated and temporalized, and how these perspectives contribute to anthropological research in the Canadian context.
Anthropological Approaches to Infrastructure
Infrastructures lie at the core of numerous social transformations, sociopolitical and economic developments, and creative processes of innovation. They have become significant indicators of an ongoing transition towards preferable futures, symbols of economic growth, technological advancement, and modernization. As Harvey and Knox (2012, 523) argue, infrastructures embody “promises of emancipatory modernity”—such as speed, connectivity, and economic prosperity; they “enchant” the hopes and dreams associated with development. Infrastructures contribute to imaginaries of improved futures, which remain elusive, flawed, and difficult to define (Abram and Weszkalnys 2013). Operating “on the level of fantasy and desire” (Larkin 2013, 333), infrastructures “draw together political and economic forces in complicated ways and often with unexpected effects,” implicating “broader dynamics of social change” (Harvey, Jensen, and Morita 2017, 2).
