Infrastructure, time and labour: movement and suspension along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor

Abstract

ABSTRACT Africa’s renewed push towards infrastructure development brought with it new forms of territorialisation tied to both capital and labour. Infrastructures are expected to connect specific African hubs to global trade flows, promote industrialisation and increase employment rates, yet they often struggle to fulfil said promises. We explore the relationship between Africa’s ‘infrastructure turn’ and changing labour relations through the case of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor in West Africa. Drawing from critical infrastructure studies and broader work in labour geography, we use the concept of suspension as a lens to illuminate a variety of processes – occurring across varied temporalities and scales – that are imbricated in the construction of different forms of infrastructural labour. We posit that infrastructure development as currently structured simultaneously (i) reinforces geopolitical inequities in the division of labour in the design and implementation of infrastructure projects; (ii) fosters competition amongst states for value and trade capture; and (iii) prompts contestation and disavowal in the context of the construction of specific projects. These three distinct, yet inter-related ways in which infrastructure development entangles with labour dynamics highlight that the work of imagining and crafting infrastructural promise creates pathways for novel, and often contested, configurations of labour relations.