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For many urbanites, infrastructural uncertainty refers to ‘predictable shocks’ rather than constituting a quotidian experience. By contrast, for the peri-urban poor, the sources of uncertainty underpinning water and sanitation services are endless: uncertainty about cost, about being evicted and indeed about ever becoming connected to networked systems. Drawing on a number of case studies, we argue that across the urban global south, the future is not one of networked systems but rather one of ‘infrastructural archipelagos’ that need to be thoroughly understood in order to bridge the growing gap between everyday and large infrastructural planning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This paper presents preliminary results from an on-going research project on the governance of water and sanitation services in the PUI of five metropolitan areas in three continents. It explores differences and similarities in the formal and informal practices in the delivery and consumption of these services. It deals with issues of access to decision-making, exploring the role that different actors, including state institutions, play in the political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]