“We Made it by Ourselves”: Citizenship through the Lens of Mobility Infrastructure in Informal Neighborhoods in Lima’s Peripheries

This article examines the notion of citizenship in Lima’s peripheries through the lens of mobility infrastructure. Less studied than housing or essential services such as water and electricity, these infrastructures nevertheless represent a pressing necessity and reflect significant socio-spatial inequalities. We use the concept of infrastructural citizenship to analyze the relationships between residents and the State and their evolution over time. Rather than a universal achievement, we demonstrate the existence of differentiated citizenship and a process of citizenship construction from below, resulting from a specific social contract between the State and residents of the peripheries. The article highlights the temporalities in which citizenship is expressed or enacted about infrastructure in terms of access, construction, or maintenance. Beyond the legal definition of citizenship, it explains the multiple forms of the State (depending on the levels of action) and citizen involvement. Finally, it questions the place of the informal sector, particularly through self-construction processes and “popular” transport, in urban production and as a form of building citizenship from below.