Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Infrastructure Communication and Social Disparities

This chapter defines infrastructure communication as the process of communicating about, through, and with infrastructure, and explores its implications for addressing structural disparities and establishing a more socially just system. Infrastructure communication, we argue, can both reinforce and challenge dominant structures and relations by expanding and/or limiting access to vital resources. This chapter maps the broader implications of four distinct, yet intersecting, disciplinary perspectives to infrastructure communication; namely, from civil and environmental engineering, organizational communication, disaster and crisis management, and grassroots development scholarship. We close by discussing some overarching commonalities and outlining possible directions for future research. We conclude that infrastructure communication serves protective, regulatory, and constitutive roles in addressing social disparities.