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
Physical Details: 232
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.
...MoreReview 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).
Similar Citations
Article
Tom Kane;
Nick Novelli;
(March 2019)
Technology for Governance, Politics, and Democracy [Special Issue Introduction]
Article
Jan-Peter Voß;
Nina Amelung;
(October 2016)
Innovating public participation methods: Technoscientization and reflexive engagement
Article
Lagendijk, Vincent;
Vleuten, Erik van der;
(2010)
Interpreting transnational infrastructure vulnerability: 4/11 and the historical dynamics of transnational electricity governance
Book
Andreas Marklund;
Mogens Ruediger;
(2017)
Historicizing Infrastructure
Article
Dick Kasperowski;
Niclas Hagen;
(June 2022)
Making particularity travel: Trust and citizen science data in Swedish environmental governance
Chapter
Graciela Schneier Madanes;
(2022)
Governing Water Infrastructure in Buenos Aires: A City at Risk
Article
Idris Animashaun;
(2024)
J. A. Ajao and the real estate enterprise in 20th century Lagos
Article
Faruq Idowu Boge;
(2024)
A family enterprise: The Shonubis of Ikorodu, 1919–1949
Book
Disco, Cornelis;
Kranakis, Eda;
(2013)
Cosmopolitan Commons: Sharing Resources and Risks across Borders
Book
Anand, Nikhil;
Gupta, Akhil;
Appel, Hannah;
(2018)
The Promise of Infrastructure
Book
Guldi, Jo;
(2012)
Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State
Article
Katherine C. Epstein;
(2018)
Intellectual Property and National Security: The Case of the Hardcastle Superheater, 1905–1927
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
Book
Baum, Richard;
(1980)
China's four modernizations: The new technological revolution
Article
Hang Zhang;
Hongguang Zhang;
Fuling Nie;
(2024)
Government controls, non-government reactions: Private radio manufacturing and the development of amateur radio in China (1912–1949)
Book
Huub Dijstelbloem;
(2021)
Borders as Infrastructure: The Technopolitics of Border Control
Article
Annalisa Pelizza;
(March 2016)
Developing the Vectorial Glance Infrastructural Inversion for the New Agenda on Government Information Systems
Article
Lagendijk, Vincent;
Vleuten, Erik van der;
(April 2010)
Transnational infrastructure vulnerability: The historical shaping of the 2006 European blackout
Book
Dietmar Offenhuber;
(2017)
Waste Is Information: Infrastructure Legibility and Governance
Book
Silvia M. Lindtner;
(2020)
Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation
Be the first to comment!