When It Rains, It Floods: An Ethnography of Infrastructure and Citizenship in New Orleans

Abstract

Infrastructures such as sewage, drainage, and roads are much more than technologies; they also play a key role in shaping social life. This thesis examines the social and political consequences of the breakdown of infrastructure. On August 5th, 2017, torrential rain and the failure of New Orleans’s drainage and pumping infrastructures led to a brief but damaging flood. Through several weeks of ethnographic research, I investigated how a city that experienced enormous flood-related trauma following Hurricane Katrina responded to another inundation. I argue that we can conceptualize repeated infrastructural breakdown as a process of infrastructural ruination. While the New Orleans city government continues to promise functioning infrastructure, residents face the consequences of infrastructural ruination. However, citizens’ anger after the August 5th flood proves that the ongoing dissonance between promises and reality has not led to an acceptance of inadequate infrastructure. The aftermath of the flood revealed that water management infrastructure in New Orleans is still capable of bringing people together to demand change and forcing the government to act.