Nevertheless, the road, somewhat miraculously saw the day, may be, because the
contractor had little previous experience.
Politicians usually can sense the electoral (or legacy) advantage of a close
association with these promissory project spaces. Often, there are reports of disputed
paternity as successive governments stake their competing claims to having brought
the project into being. One government may have inaugurated the first stage or just
laid the foundation before the rest of the project even took definite shape. The
compulsion of governments to inaugurate public works points to the political
acquisition of infrastructural projects. It also points out that what is celebrated is
not social transformation per se. The inauguration celebrations certainly expect a
positive transformation, but politicians are tempted to over identify with specific
future outcomes. Their speeches tend to be directed more towards the resources that
are being or will be brought to an area. State commitment is (over)emphasized
through the investment metrics used. The political grandiloquence focuses on
expenditure figures, the area to benefit, and covered, the number of structures
built, or the employment numbers and potential beneficiaries. But these metrics
are planned out as metrics of attention and governmental investment in unspecified
futures, but usually within the government’s mandate!
Inaugurations are public ceremonials that seek to envelope construction work,
carried out by an engineering company, with its often fairly large and distributed
workforce, into a chronicle of state-led development. In these ceremonies, the
infrastructure project is presented as an event.
Inaugural events convey a very specific kind of promise - a promise that encompasses the notion of the complex occurrence of infrastructures to embrace spatial and
temporal alternatives. In many countries, the promise of public works is predictable
in the politician’s repertoires at all levels, and from all perspectives in the political
spectrum to combine a technological promise with the promise of a public service or
good delivery, but inaugurations bring a different order. The inauguration ritual
attempts to make the new beginning auspicious.
Overall, the project sometimes transforms the material circumstances of people’s
lives with infrastructural consequences which even the designers and planners can
never plan or control. The subsequent quality of infrastructural form remains
unanswered, probably forever, because as a project may hold together so many
and various infrastructural possibilities, that the event of transformation can only be
appreciated in retrospect.
Sometimes, transformations begin a long time before construction starts. Local
businesses start to gear up for new markets and the new marketing conditions that the
implementation of a project (in particular, if huge and national) implies. Concurrently, local people may start campaigning over project alignment or siting and
employment so as to maximize the potential economic benefits. Land speculation
may become widespread, with squatter settlements appearing at strategic locations.
Rumours generally circulate about vested interests and the uneven advantage,
through inside information.
Questions related to what exactly people may wish to transform and what they
wish to retain will multiply as the works proceed. However, it may not be in the
7.8 Social Aspects of Infrastructure
207
contractor had little previous experience.
Politicians usually can sense the electoral (or legacy) advantage of a close
association with these promissory project spaces. Often, there are reports of disputed
paternity as successive governments stake their competing claims to having brought
the project into being. One government may have inaugurated the first stage or just
laid the foundation before the rest of the project even took definite shape. The
compulsion of governments to inaugurate public works points to the political
acquisition of infrastructural projects. It also points out that what is celebrated is
not social transformation per se. The inauguration celebrations certainly expect a
positive transformation, but politicians are tempted to over identify with specific
future outcomes. Their speeches tend to be directed more towards the resources that
are being or will be brought to an area. State commitment is (over)emphasized
through the investment metrics used. The political grandiloquence focuses on
expenditure figures, the area to benefit, and covered, the number of structures
built, or the employment numbers and potential beneficiaries. But these metrics
are planned out as metrics of attention and governmental investment in unspecified
futures, but usually within the government’s mandate!
Inaugurations are public ceremonials that seek to envelope construction work,
carried out by an engineering company, with its often fairly large and distributed
workforce, into a chronicle of state-led development. In these ceremonies, the
infrastructure project is presented as an event.
Inaugural events convey a very specific kind of promise - a promise that encompasses the notion of the complex occurrence of infrastructures to embrace spatial and
temporal alternatives. In many countries, the promise of public works is predictable
in the politician’s repertoires at all levels, and from all perspectives in the political
spectrum to combine a technological promise with the promise of a public service or
good delivery, but inaugurations bring a different order. The inauguration ritual
attempts to make the new beginning auspicious.
Overall, the project sometimes transforms the material circumstances of people’s
lives with infrastructural consequences which even the designers and planners can
never plan or control. The subsequent quality of infrastructural form remains
unanswered, probably forever, because as a project may hold together so many
and various infrastructural possibilities, that the event of transformation can only be
appreciated in retrospect.
Sometimes, transformations begin a long time before construction starts. Local
businesses start to gear up for new markets and the new marketing conditions that the
implementation of a project (in particular, if huge and national) implies. Concurrently, local people may start campaigning over project alignment or siting and
employment so as to maximize the potential economic benefits. Land speculation
may become widespread, with squatter settlements appearing at strategic locations.
Rumours generally circulate about vested interests and the uneven advantage,
through inside information.
Questions related to what exactly people may wish to transform and what they
wish to retain will multiply as the works proceed. However, it may not be in the
7.8 Social Aspects of Infrastructure
207