Review essay: Infrastructure: From boundary object to bridging concept AlatasIsmail FajrieWhat is Religious Authority? Cultivating Islamic Communities in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. 268 pp. ISBN 9780691204314HenkeChristopher R.SimsBenjaminRepairing Infrastructures: The Maintenance of Materiality and Power. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020. 210 pp. ISBN 9780262539708NortonMatthewThe Punishment of Pirates. Interpretation and Institutional Order in the Early Modern British …

By reviewing the books What is Religious Authority? , Repairing Infrastructures , and The Punishment of Pirates , in this essay I argue that they signal a shift toward the adoption of infrastructure as a “bridging concept” within the social sciences and the humanities. By examining how the books’ authors mobilize the notion of infrastructure in their explanatory strategies, I highlight the productivity of this concept for the analysis of social situations and the interpretations arising within them.