The politics of increments in collective urban action

This chapter explores some of the practices that residents have used to make viable forms of inhabitation in the postcolonial urban world. It focuses on infrastructures of relationality. Urban politics is a politics of disappointment—about the "not there" in what is there, or perhaps, more that of "disappointing". Instead of committing resources and efforts to the realization of a "complete" project, the increments are instantiated to elicit particular kinds of attention and recognition. The incremental is partly enacted through the momentary captivations. But the incremental usually encompasses a diverse range of practices. All of the investments in property, education, legibility have just gotten people deeper in debt, further from where the economic action is, more isolated, more insecure. Investments may have been made in consolidating contiguous plots into facilities which combine residential and economic activities. The apparently naturalized link between economic efficacy and specific urbanized styles of calculation and individuation may also be broken