Networked infrastructures and the ‘local': Flows and connectivity in a postsocialist city

Through an analysis of ethnographic data gathered from two communities using Bucharest's urban infrastructures, we argue that studies that privilege the large-scale analyses may be enriched by paying closer attention to small-scale, non-structural factors that create local citizenship claims and local forms of belonging to the city. The template of neoliberal transformations of urban networks acquires unexpected forms at the infra-city scale, which may be fruitfully approached ethnographically. We begin with a historical overview of networked infrastructures during socialism and postsocialism in Bucharest. We then describe and contrast two of the many forms of belonging and exclusion from the city—grounded in infrastructural connections and disconnections—that we call ‘maintenance and repair citizenship' and ‘incomplete citizenship'.