Out of a River of Diesel: Imagining Post-Corruption Infrastructures

• In Event: STS and Security Studies: Expertise, Infrastructures and Practices - I

Abstract

129 burned corpses were found in the surroundings of a gasoline pipeline in Tlahuelilpan, 80 km away from the place where I was born, not far from Mexico City. Two weeks earlier, the new government had started to implement a historical battle against the theft of national oil, also known as “huachicoleo”, a practice that takes millions of dollars away from the Mexican government and from its people. According to the news, Tlahuelilpan people were dancing and taking a bath in a river of diesel formed by a high pressure squirt coming out of an illegally perforated pipeline, while carrying water (or gasoline) containers. Suddenly, there was a massive explosion. Milking gasoline pipelines in a large scale has been a common practice in this and several, maybe hundreds of other poor small towns in Mexico. As these events were unfolding, at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean I was carrying out empirical research looking at the development of sewer and pipeline inspection robots funded by the European Commission. How could these two worlds come together? In this presentation, I address this question by analyzing documentation about the battle against “huachicoleo” and construct a speculative scenario in which “post-corruption infrastructures” could be developed. I examine different forms of innovation oriented to tackle corrupt states, point to their limitations, and ask for further research directions.

Author

• Carlos Cuevas-Garcia, Technical University of Munich