Infrastructures are much more than just the mundane tangible objects they are perceived to be in everyday life by the ordinary bystander. Roads, fences, buildings, pipelines, sidewalks, railroads, sewage systems and so on, are all part of complex assemblages shaped by the “dynamic relational forms” that they share with people, things, organizations and the environment (Harvey and Knox 2015: 4). Infrastructures often represent the materialization of modernity, progress, mobility and positive influence of the state. However, they can also be the cause or manifestation of decline, and thereby invoke a sense of uncertainty or anxiety regarding the present and/or the future. Infrastructure (its failure, ruin or decline) can thus be considered a tangible, material conduit for anxiety.

Defined as a state of agitation, being troubled in mind, feeling uneasy about a coming event (Tyrer 1999: 3), anxiety is a physically embodied state involving both mental and emotional distress, combined with a more diffuse worry about what might (be)come. Thefocus on temporality here lies in looking at what the future holds and how current events will affect that future, both as individuals but also as part of combined entities such as governments and (nation-)states. Infrastructures, as Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox put forward, render the social and political visible in our contemporary world (Harvey and Knox 2015: 4). This in turn, we argue, creates uncertainty regarding the current situation of peoples and what the future might hold. The relationality between populations, infrastructure and anxiety in this way becomes tangible.

So, how does anxiety materialize through infrastructural settings? In what manner does infrastructural modernization, decay or renovation bring forth or combat anxiety? How do the opportunities that come with infrastructural development cope with setbacks or envisioned futures never met? What kind of role does technology play in this? How are these anxieties dealt with by the affected local populations and the authorities, and how does this impact their coexistence?

This edited collection seeks to answer these questions through a critical analysis of the dialectical relationship between infrastructure and anxiety, one that is mediated through materiality.