IsisCB Explore

Book ID: CBB663829322

Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria (2022)

Smith, Daniel Jordan (Author)

Princeton University Press
Publication date: 2022
Language: English

ISBN: 9780691229911

Publication Date: 2022
Physical Details: 232

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

Google Books

Inventors and invention Technology and society Technology and government Development of technology; change in technology Citizen science; community science Governance Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship Infrastructure 20th century 21st century Nigeria

When Nigerians say that every household is its own local government, what they mean is that the politicians and state institutions of Africa’s richest, most populous country cannot be trusted to ensure even the most basic infrastructure needs of their people. Daniel Jordan Smith traces how innovative entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens in Nigeria have forged their own systems in response to these deficiencies, devising creative solutions in the daily struggle to survive.Drawing on his three decades of experience in Nigeria, Smith examines the many ways Nigerians across multiple social strata develop technologies, businesses, social networks, political strategies, cultural repertoires, and everyday routines to cope with the constant failure of government infrastructure. He describes how Nigerians provide for basic needs like water, electricity, transportation, security, communication, and education—and how their inventiveness comes with consequences. On the surface, it may appear that their self-reliance and sheer hustle render the state irrelevant. In reality, the state is not so much absent as complicit. Smith shows how private efforts to address infrastructural shortcomings require regular engagement with government officials, shaping the experience of citizenship and strengthening state power.Every Household Its Own Government reveals how these dealings have contributed to forms and practices of governance that thrive on official dysfunction and perpetuate the very inequalities and injustices that afflict struggling Nigerians.

...More

Reviewed By

Review Robert Heinze (2023) Review of "Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria". Technology and Culture (pp. 943-944). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB663829322

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Tom Kane; Nick Novelli; (March 2019)
Technology for Governance, Politics, and Democracy [Special Issue Introduction] (/p/isis/citation/CBB355109142/)

Article Jan-Peter Voß; Nina Amelung; (October 2016)
Innovating public participation methods: Technoscientization and reflexive engagement (/p/isis/citation/CBB261047944/)

Article Lagendijk, Vincent; Vleuten, Erik van der; (2010)
Interpreting transnational infrastructure vulnerability: 4/11 and the historical dynamics of transnational electricity governance (/p/isis/citation/CBB001180971/)

Book Andreas Marklund; Mogens Ruediger; (2017)
Historicizing Infrastructure (/p/isis/citation/CBB045716184/)

Chapter Graciela Schneier Madanes; (2022)
Governing Water Infrastructure in Buenos Aires: A City at Risk (/p/isis/citation/CBB327118170/)

Article Dick Kasperowski; Niclas Hagen; (June 2022)
Making particularity travel: Trust and citizen science data in Swedish environmental governance (/p/isis/citation/CBB251191827/)

Book Huub Dijstelbloem; (2021)
Borders as Infrastructure: The Technopolitics of Border Control (/p/isis/citation/CBB684823908/)

Article Annalisa Pelizza; (March 2016)
Developing the Vectorial Glance Infrastructural Inversion for the New Agenda on Government Information Systems (/p/isis/citation/CBB157462407/)

Article Lagendijk, Vincent; Vleuten, Erik van der; (April 2010)
Transnational infrastructure vulnerability: The historical shaping of the 2006 European blackout (/p/isis/citation/CBB001180972/)

Book Disco, Cornelis; Kranakis, Eda; (2013)
Cosmopolitan Commons: Sharing Resources and Risks across Borders (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421290/)

Book Anand, Nikhil; Gupta, Akhil; Appel, Hannah; (2018)
The Promise of Infrastructure (/p/isis/citation/CBB323486445/)

Book Guldi, Jo; (2012)
Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212551/)

Book Silvia M. Lindtner; (2020)
Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (/p/isis/citation/CBB931166794/)

Book Baum, Richard; (1980)
China's four modernizations: The new technological revolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB001180567/)

Article Ritwick Ghosh; (2024)
Data-driven governance and performances of accountability: critical reflections from US agri-environmental policy (/p/isis/citation/CBB236896152/)

Article Leandro de Brasi; (March 2019)
Democratic Governance of Information Technologies: The Need for Citizen Competence (/p/isis/citation/CBB632904072/)

Article Katherine C. Epstein; (2018)
Intellectual Property and National Security: The Case of the Hardcastle Superheater, 1905–1927 (/p/isis/citation/CBB436104785/)

Book Weightman, Gavin; (2003)
Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the Nineteenth Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB000500142/)

Book Govind Gopakumar; (2020)
Installing Automobility: Emerging Politics of Mobility and Streets in Indian Cities (/p/isis/citation/CBB342860952/)

Book Timothy Moss; (2020)
Remaking Berlin: A History of the City through Infrastructure, 1920–2020 (/p/isis/citation/CBB159764389/)