Unfinished Futures: Ethnographical Reflections on Infrastructure and Aspirations in an informal settlement in South Africa

Abstract

The paper introduces “unfinishedness” as a central feature of fieldwork. I argue that unfinishedness, as a temporal as much as ontological condition of fieldwork, is evoked through the complex relation of people’s aspirations and infrastructural life situation. In its consequence, the acceptance of unfinishedness as an inherent principle of fieldwork encounters opens up lines of thought about how to possibly reconfigure anthropological research. Based on field research in an informal settlement in South Africa, two particular field stories are presented that demonstrate how people negotiate their aspirations in conjunction with particular infrastructural conditions and how they get by in the meantime. Moreover, the article sheds light on the so called iShack project, a nongovernmental project, that has brought solar electricity to most households in the settlement. This particular project is crucial for the shaping of people’s future aspirations and gives way to states of unfinished futures.