Session 7 - Lilongwe

Making Lilongwe urban: the production of inequalities within the centralized water supply network

By Maria Rusca

This paper takes the production of inequalities within the centralized water supply network of  Lilongwe, Malawi, as a starting point to examine how Africa’s water infrastructures are shaping urban  spaces and lives. First, by tracing the expansions of the distribution network and the strategic locations  of service reservoirs over a period of 50 years, we examine the role of water infrastructure in co-shaping and mediating inequities in Lilongwe. Engaging with the technical intricacies of designing  water infrastructures, we argue, helps illuminating motivations and guiding principles of Lilongwe’s  development trajectory. Our analysis reveals how large water infrastructures (e.g. dams) were  developed to improve continuity of supply of higher income residents, rather than to serve the growing  unserved urban population in informal settlements. Second, eschewing conceptualisations of  infrastructure as fixed material artefacts, we then focus on infrastructures ‘in use’, showing how  operation and maintenance intersect with infrastructural configurations and contribute to produce  highly differentiated water supply across the city. We show how the prioritisation of certain areas and  consumers is rationalised through the idea of the so-called 'premium customer', a citizen who needs  and deserves more water than others. Last, we discuss how materials not only embody but also change  social relations of power and remakes urban experiences, contributing to further our understanding of  how inequities in access to water come about and endure. This paper thereby also serves as a  demonstration of how an interdisciplinary approach to the study of (water) infrastructures can serve to  further analyses of urbanism and water supplies.

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