Browsing by Author "Visser, Christo"

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    Improving shacks, upgrading settlements: An ethnography of solar power infrastructure in the informal settlement of Enkanini, Stellenbosch
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Visser, Christo; Robins, Steven; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis ethnographically explores an in-situ upgrading experiment known as the iShack Project. Through the use of ethnography as method the research elaborates on the intricacies and tensions inherent in attempts at establishing a low cost energy institution in the illegal informal settlement of Enkanini. Demonstrating how infrastructures are more than material configurations, this thesis traces the various human and non-human actors, practices and discourses involved in the establishment of the project over the course of ten months. By Drawing of Fergusons‘ concept of dependence the research shows that although claims are made to the 'apolitical‘ nature of the method for the delivery of solar power, the iShack Project produces new political subjectivities that at times resist the possibilities of a low cost energy institution.