Socioplastics 11838 The Heat Has No Department
Expert departments can produce reliable knowledge within their mandates while leaving important problems between them. DisciplinePartition [9015] describes the gap created when responsibilities follow separate disciplines, budgets or administrative units. A municipal heat programme may divide road surfaces, trees and public buildings among three departments, while the shaded route between housing, a bus stop and a clinic remains discontinuous. Hannah Appel’s work on contracts and the licit organisation of capitalism shows how formal systems structure activity and responsibility. Kregg Hetherington’s study of auditing examines how documents and procedures shape what institutions can recognise. Their work helps locate departmental boundaries as practical arrangements: they distribute authority, evidence and accountability. Specialisation supports detailed expertise; shared outcomes require a way to coordinate decisions across those boundaries. A common street section could be reviewed by each department and annotated with its criteria, decision powers and maintenance duties. The drawing would connect pavement, tree canopy, drainage, transit and building entrances as one pedestrian route. Budgets, schedules, service indicators and observations at different times of day would show where separate mandates produce gaps. The result could guide a shared budget, joint standard or escalation route for decisions that cross units. DisciplinePartition makes those intervals observable and assigns responsibility for the continuity people experience. A shared indicator can support coordination when an authorised body owns it and reviews outcomes with residents. The method preserves specialist knowledge while giving institutions a common object through which to decide, act and revise. The review can name a coordinator, shared resources and a date for checking the route in use, connecting interdepartmental agreement with observable conditions.
REFERENCES
Appel, H. (2019) The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hetherington, K. (2011) Guerrilla Auditors: The Politics of Transparency in Neoliberal Paraguay. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
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