The development of material infrastructures has profoundly shaped the nature of modern society, yet it is poorly grasped in social theory. From transport, communications, and energy to water and waste management, to surveillance and data systems, infrastructure literally makes modern society possible. It is crucial to the capacity to sustain large-scale social integration, both in terms of intensity (cities) and extension (national and global relations). Through a collaboration with Hillary Angelo of UCSC, I am exploring how to integrate infrastructure into social theory, and on that basis how better to address major society challenges like climate change.

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​Infrastructures are bases on which social, economic, and political life rests. Some of the most important include transportation, communications, energy, water, and waste. Cities could not exist without them, not the large-scale and of abstractly systemic webs of indirect social relations. But even directly interpersonal relations depend on infrastructures: sidewalks and front porches, places to meet, ways to stay in touch with those who move.