TY - BOOK ID - 101893113 TI - The city electric : infrastructure and ingenuity in postsocialist Tanzania PY - 2022 SN - 1478023775 147801914X 1478092815 1478016507 9781478016502 9781478023777 PB - Durham : Duke University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography KW - Sociology KW - East Africa KW - electricity KW - infrastructure KW - neoliberalism KW - postsocialism KW - parasite KW - modality KW - Electric power distribution KW - Electric power transmission KW - Electric utilities KW - Political corruption KW - Reliability. KW - Corrupt practices KW - Tanzania Electric Supply Company. KW - Boss rule KW - Corruption (in politics) KW - Graft in politics KW - Malversation KW - Political scandals KW - Politics, Practical KW - Corruption KW - Misconduct in office KW - Electric companies KW - Electric light and power industry KW - Electric power industry KW - Electric industries KW - Energy industries KW - Public utilities KW - Electricity KW - Power transmission, Electric KW - Electric power systems KW - Electric lines KW - Power distribution, Electric KW - Power transmission KW - Electrification KW - Transmission KW - Distribution KW - TANESCO KW - T.A.N.E.S.C.O. KW - Tanzania Electric Supply Co. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:101893113 AB - "Over the last twenty years of neoliberal reform, the power supply in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's metropolis, has become less reliable even as its importance has increased. Though mobile phones, televisions, and refrigerators have flooded the city, the electricity required to run these devices is still supplied by the socialist-era energy company Tanesco, which is characterized by increased fees, aging infrastructure, and a sluggish bureaucracy. While some residents contemplate off-grid solutions, others repair, extend, or tap into the state network with the assistance of freelance electricians or moonlighting utility employees. In The City Electric Michael Degani explores how electricity and its piracy has become a key site for urban Tanzanians to enact, experience, and debate their social contract with the state. Moving from the politics of generation contracts down to the street level experience of blackouts and disconnection patrols, he reveals the logics of infrastructural modification and their effects on everyday life. As politicians, residents, electricians, and utility inspectors all redistribute flows of payment and power, they reframe the energy grid as both a technical system and an ongoing experiment in collective interdependence."-- ER -