{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,18]],"date-time":"2026-07-18T10:20:52Z","timestamp":1784370052201,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":69,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,1]],"date-time":"2020-05-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1588291200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Soc Stud Sci"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This exploratory article considers the accumulations of fat and other materials in London\u2019s sewerage system \u2013 known as fatbergs in the UK \u2013 in terms of the processes of infrastructuring. In particular, drawing on a range of media, including a major museum exhibition, numerous newspaper and online articles, and a TV documentary, this article analyses how London\u2019s fatbergs have been affectively enacted. The affects identified include: disgust in the composition of the fatberg, pride in the London-ness of the fatbergs, admiration at the \u2018flushers\u2019 courage, generic horror at the sewers, shame in the flushing of wet wipes, and anxiety about microbial threats. Such enactments simultaneously perform the fatbergs, the sewerage infrastructure, and the public audiences, through what we can call \u2018affective infrastructuring\u2019. This extends the analysis of infrastructuring to encompass the ways in which public audiences are affectively \u2018made\u2019. The article also suggests that the various affective enactments of the fatberg cumulatively perform London as spatially uniform and the sewerage system as temporally naturalized. A critical implication of this is an effacement of, on the one hand, class and cultural difference and, on the other, historical specificity.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/0306312720917754","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,1]],"date-time":"2020-05-01T06:19:26Z","timestamp":1588313966000},"page":"377-397","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["London\u2019s fatbergs and affective infrastructuring"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"50","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9272-2294","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mike","family":"Michael","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-0306312720917754","unstructured":"Adams T (2018) London\u2019s fatberg on show: \u2018We thought of pickling it.\u2019 The Guardian, 4 February. 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