Jos

Infrastructure turned suprastructure : unpredictable materialities and visions of a Nigerian nation

Upphovspersoner:	Trovalla, Ulrika | Trovalla, Eric
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics
År:	2014
Ämnesord:	African urbanity, anthropology, infrastructure, materiality, Nigeria, Jos, Urban environment, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

There are signs hidden in the infrastructure. In the Nigerian city of Jos, the unpredictable availability of power, fuel, water, etc. becomes a vehicle of meaning. In many settings across the globe, infrastructure is often made invisible, and the centre stage that it takes in everyday life remains unrecognized. In Jos, however, as in many African cities, the constant need to predict its flows contradicts the prefix infra (below); rather than being hidden beneath the realm of experience it is brought to the surface as a puzzle to be figured out. These explorations in turn come to reveal matters beyond the infrastructure itself. Just as diviners infer the state of the world from the stones they have thrown, reading significance out of the seeming randomness of matter, the infrastructure turns intricate questions into tangible clues. It becomes a suprastructure - a divination tool giving clues about the past, present and future of the Nigerian nation.

Suprastructure : A photo exhibition

Upphovspersoner:	Trovalla, Ulrika | Trovalla, Erik
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics |
År:	2013
Ämnesord:	photo exhibition, photos, Jos, Nigeria

The photo exhibition ’Suprastructure’ was first displayed at Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala between 17 November 2012 and 5 March 2013. It was digitally published in March 2013 as part of a research project entitled ‘Infrastructure as Divination: Urban Life in the Postcolony,’ financed by the Swedish Research Council. The scholars behind the exhibition, Ulrika and Erik Trovalla, are researchers in cultural anthropology and ethnology. They are based at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, and Uppsala University. Drawing on their photographs from the million city Jos in central Nigeria, they here give a glimpse of their research into the meanings of infrastructure in everyday life.