What do we want from a concept?

Abstract

The article ‘What is “affective infrastructure”?’ sought to historicize and rework a concept in geographical and philosophical thought. In doing so, it aimed to understand how scholars use the notion of ‘affective infrastructure’ to clarify the specific (but also rather diverse) relationships among spaces or worlds or ideas to which it was applied. The article also offered my own wagers: that in grasping at infrastructure today, scholars are sometimes implicitly missing – or explicitly disavowing – some of the historical-materialist and partisan origins and potential uses of the concept in continental theory, but also revolutionary movement analysis. Five reviews by six readers disaggregate my attempts to clarify and synthesize the stakes of this concept. This commentary responds to each of these generous accounts and reflects on the mediating work and stakes of conceptual genealogies, inventions, and rehabilitations.