Neighbour‐Based Organisations as Social Infrastructure: Gathering, Channelling and Remaining in the Midst of Mexico City's Water Crisis

This article examines how neighbour‐based organisations function as social infrastructures in contexts of water scarcity. Drawing on a qualitative case study of the Water Defence Committee in Mexico City, it explores how these organisations become social infrastructure through specific practices identified as gathering, channelling and remaining. Gathering involves bringing people together and assembling a public around shared concerns. Channelling describes how relationships and alliances are mobilised to shape the flow of resources such as water. Remaining highlights the ongoing work required to maintain collective organisation over time and to mitigate the risks of disengagement or co‐optation. By examining these practices, the article shows how neighbour‐based organisations acquire infrastructural qualities that sustain everyday life when facing precarity. The article contributes to debates on social infrastructure by bridging spatial and relational understandings of infrastructure through a focus on organisations, social practices and the work involved in them. In doing so, it shifts attention from defining social infrastructure to examining what social infrastructure does.