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Paper short abstract

The paper examines local transformations resulting from the introduction of large infrastructural projects, particularly among communities that depend on natural resources for their livelihood. It explores how state policies legitimise such projects and how locals negotiate with consequent changes.

Paper long abstract

The paper examines the local transformations arising from the introduction of large infrastructural projects among local communities, particularly those that depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. The study draws from ethnographic work conducted in the coastal town of Vizhinjam, in the south Indian state of Kerala, where a significant portion of the population is engaged in traditional fishing. Vizhinjam is also the site of India’s first international deep-water container transhipment port, developed as a private-public partnership project between the state (government of Kerala) and India’s largest commercial port operator, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (APSEZ). In popular discourses, the port project is considered a major step towards national and local development. The project is also central to Kerala’s efforts to dispel the notion of being skeptical of private-led industrialization and in rebranding itself as an ‘investor-friendly’ state. However, the deep-sea fishers of Vizhinjam and the Latin Catholic Church have raised concerns about the potential consequences of port construction on local lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems.

Given this backdrop, the paper explores how policy processes legitimized the development of the seaport and the changes the port project brought about in the everyday lives and livelihoods of the local communities. I use David Harvey’s (2017) accumulation by dispossession and Michael Levien’s (2017) reconstitution of the same as the theoretical starting points. The paper contributes to this theory by introducing the concept of procedural dispossessions that explains how dispossessions are legitimised and validated through policy procedures present within democratic systems.