Felipe Fernández, PhD Fellow of the IRTG 'Temporalities of Future', was awarded with a honorable mention (Roseberry-Nash-Prize) by the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (SLACA) for his paper: "Diseños para escalar la infraestructura. A propósito de la intervención estatal en el casco urbano de Buenaventura, Colombia" / ENG: "Designs for Scalable Infrastructure: On State Intervention in Buenaventura, Colombia"

The paper addresses state interventions in the port-city of Buenaventura in the face of infrastructural breakdown. As a response and reaction to social mobilizations and unrests in its wake, the Colombian State outlined and initiated the Plan Todos Somos Pazcífico (PTSP). The paper examines the political, material, and social dimensions and ramifications of the PTSP in its attempt to transform urban infrastructure. It argues that these state interventions can be understood as a system of scalability, following the term first proposed by Anna Tsing. PTSP’s designs utilize a web of stabilized project elements (plans, materials, guidelines) that aim to replicate themselves without taking into account the diversity of other forms of ‘pirate infrastructures’ in the form of irregular connections, water collection tanks, and solidarity networks. The article makes a contribution to urban anthropological studies which revolve around state planning and interventions. It takes infrastructure as a ground and vantage point from which to analyze social, political and material relationships.

Here a link to the online article.