Strangers at the Bedside: Solidarity-making to address institutionalized infrastructural inequalities

Abstract

This study explores how heterogeneous actors produce solidarities to address institutionalized infrastructural inequalities. We trace fifteen years over which diverse actors constructed community palliative care infrastructure in Kerala, India. We analyse how actors engaged in solidarity processes of recognizing interdependences, reconfiguring spaces and re-imagining accountability to challenge exclusionary institutions and construct inclusive infrastructure at different scales. We foreground solidarity-making as an indispensable yet under-theorized aspect of institutional research on inequalities. We inform solidarity studies by illustrating how solidarity-making pulsates infrastructures with diverse webs of relations and spatial configurations. Overall, we advance a generative engagement with heterogeneity in institutional analyses and discuss the implications of solidarity-making to address infrastructural inequalities.