{"title":"Politics of Infrastructural Developmentalism: A Spatial Reading of the Colombo Port City Project","authors":"Mayank Mishra","doi":"10.1177/09763996241260124","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A state produces political space and uses this space as a privileged instrument to impose its rationality. A high-modernist state commences ‘prescribing’ and ‘imposing’ to establish a ‘new society’, thus adhering to a tabula rasa (blank slate) approach in policies and planning. It denounces the past as a model to ameliorate the present, disregarding local conditions and knowledge, and perpetuating visual images that promise an alchemised future. In a typical spatial understanding of the state, the standard marker of growth is perceivably developing infrastructure. The article intends to do a spatial and temporal reading of the Colombo Port City (CPC) project, deemed to perceivably transform the Sri Lankan urban economic landscape, as a case study. The article conducted an ethnographic study of the project, locating it in Harvey’s ‘spatial fix’, Scott’s High Modernism and Guy Debord’s concept of spectacle to comprehend the larger spatial politics that an infrastructure project exhibits. Considering Colombo as a case study, the article shall also examine infrastructure’s political affect and how spatial reconfigurations rearrange government institutions as the infrastructure impacts and alters the nature of power. It will critically examine the modality of the investments in infrastructure, its internal politics and its much fetishized economic feasibility.","PeriodicalId":41791,"journal":{"name":"Millennial Asia","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Millennial Asia","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09763996241260124","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A state produces political space and uses this space as a privileged instrument to impose its rationality. A high-modernist state commences ‘prescribing’ and ‘imposing’ to establish a ‘new society’, thus adhering to a tabula rasa (blank slate) approach in policies and planning. It denounces the past as a model to ameliorate the present, disregarding local conditions and knowledge, and perpetuating visual images that promise an alchemised future. In a typical spatial understanding of the state, the standard marker of growth is perceivably developing infrastructure. The article intends to do a spatial and temporal reading of the Colombo Port City (CPC) project, deemed to perceivably transform the Sri Lankan urban economic landscape, as a case study. The article conducted an ethnographic study of the project, locating it in Harvey’s ‘spatial fix’, Scott’s High Modernism and Guy Debord’s concept of spectacle to comprehend the larger spatial politics that an infrastructure project exhibits. Considering Colombo as a case study, the article shall also examine infrastructure’s political affect and how spatial reconfigurations rearrange government institutions as the infrastructure impacts and alters the nature of power. It will critically examine the modality of the investments in infrastructure, its internal politics and its much fetishized economic feasibility.
期刊介绍:
Millennial Asia: An International Journal of Asian Studies is a multidisciplinary, refereed biannual journal of the Association of Asia Scholars (AAS)–an association of the alumni of the Asian Scholarship Foundation (ASF). It aims to encourage multifaceted, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research on Asia, in order to understand its fast changing context as a growth pole of global economy. By providing a forum for Asian scholars situated globally, it promotes dialogue between the global academic community, civil society and policy makers on Asian issues. The journal examines Asia on a regional and comparative basis, emphasizing patterns and tendencies that go beyond national borders and are globally relevant. Modern and contemporary Asia has witnessed dynamic transformations in cultures, societies, economies and political institutions, among others. It confronts issues of collective identity formation, ecological crisis, rapid economic change and resurgence of religion and communal identifies while embracing globalization. An analysis of past experiences can help produce a deeper understanding of contemporary change. In particular, the journal is interested in locating contemporary changes within a historical perspective, through the use of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. This way, it hopes to promote comparative studies involving Asia’s various regions. The journal brings out both thematic and general issues and the thrust areas are: Asian integration, Asian economies, sociology, culture, politics, governance, security, development issues, arts and literature and any other such issue as the editorial board may deem fit. The core fields include development encompassing agriculture, industry, regional trade, social sectors like health and education and development policy across the region and in specific countries in a comparative perspective.