Heterogeneity of the Public Utility Services: Ethnography of Sources of Electricity, Heat, and Water in Yakutia and the Arkhangelsk Region

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic field materials, I revise the generic approach to defining public utility, that does not take into account the heterogeneity of local conditions and keeps the specialized public utility and the users of its services as separate entities. Cases of providing the population of Arkhangelsk Region’s Lensky District and Republic of Sakha’s (Yakutia’s) Ust-Yansky District with electricity, heat, and water show that in the northern regions of Russia, there are many gaps in the official public utility services that local residents fill as they see fit. Dependence on the centralized resources of unreliable organizations deconstructs the passivity of “consumers”, turning them into an agent subject. Despite the different natural conditions and the degree of inclusion in the country’s transportation system, residents of the areas under study use similar strategies to compensate for the “gaps” in the activities of specialized actors, aimed at concentrating, hybridizing, supplementing, and adjusting the services of official public utility. Critically using P. Edwards’ multi-scale approach to infrastructure, I suggest the term “immanent public utility” as a concept that helps generalize the complex of practices through which the population of the North receives important resources for subsistence.