Abstract:
This article contributes to shaping the discourse on unequal geographies of infrastructure and
governance in the global South, opening up new ways of thinking through politics, practices and
modalities of power. Conceptually, informality, governance and everyday urbanism are drawn on
to unpack how the formal encounters the informal in ways that (re)configure infrastructure geographies and governance practices. This conceptual framing is empirically employed through an
analysis of electricity access in Accra, Ghana, highlighting how residents navigate unequal electricity topographies, engage in self-help initiatives, and negotiate informal networks and formal governance practices. The spatiality of the electricity infrastructure has created inequity and
opportunities for exploitation by ‘power-owners’ and ‘power-agents’ who control and manage
the electricity distribution network and, in turn, privately supply power. Electricity connections
are negotiated, access is monetised and illegality excused on grounds of good-neighbourliness,
thereby producing and perpetuating everyday politics of ‘making do’. Community movements,
everyday acts of improvisation, and incremental modifications are shown to influence the workings of formal institutions of government and shape uneven power relations and experiences of
inequality. Such an understanding of how marginalised residents navigate the electricity topographies of Accra reveals a more nuanced politics of infrastructure access, which reflects the complex realities of hybridised modalities of governance and the multiple everyday dimensions of
power that shape urban space. The article concludes that informality should not be recognised as
failure but as a sphere of opportunity, innovation and transition.
