The Corridor as Commodity: Enclosure, Legibility, and Uneven Development in Southeast Asian Railway Projects

Abstract

Corridors are promoted as seamless solutions for economic development, integrating production and consumption networks. However, they often fall short, fail, and operate as tools of accumulation for some while unevenly and, at times, violently reshaping the lives of others. This paper examines how corridors are constructed through dialectical processes of enclosure and opening, involving the enclosure of land, livelihoods, and social relations alongside the opening of spaces for speculation and accumulation, which we argue constitute corridorisation. Central to this process is abstraction, which transforms corridors into commodities, obscuring inherent contradictions and violence. Drawing on Marx's concept of commodity fetishism, we analyse corridors in Indonesia and Laos to trace the processes and effects of corridorisation. By exposing the fetishisation of corridors, this paper unmasks the hidden social relations and uneven impacts underpinning their development, shedding light on who and what is excluded from these visions of progress.