Non-human Beings as Infrastructures: The Case of Anodonta cygnea

Abstract

The article examines the role of the freshwater mussel Anodonta cygnea in drinking water biomonitoring systems, using the case of Poznań’s water infrastructure to conceptualize these organisms as infrastructural beings. It contributes to the fields of multispecies ethnography and infrastructural ecologies, engaging with the status of non-human organisms within technological systems and water resource management. As bioindicator species, Anodonta cygnea play a crucial role in water infrastructure; however, their function is reduced to the provision of ecosystem services in ways that are subordinated to human categories of utility. Their agency remains elusive, as it is contingent upon human interpretations of their behaviors and responses to environmental changes. The analysis highlights the biopolitical implications of the infrastructuralization of non-human organisms and the incorporation of their labor into the capitalist logic of extraction. At the same time, the text problematizes the possibility of capturing non-human perspectives in social research, advocating for a relational approach to water infrastructure. Drawing on infrastructural ontology, the article proposes an understanding of technological processes as entangled with biological life, thereby reconfiguring the boundaries between technology and nature.