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Paper short abstract

Counteracting the dominant, totalizing storyline of a seemingly smooth logistical-infrastructural expansion, this paper examines the intersections of economic rationality, competing imaginaries, and material politics that converge in the making of infrastructural futures in a climate-changed world.

Paper long abstract

Against the backdrop of climate catastrophe recomposing the fragile littoral ecologies, a global push for ‘blue growth’ has been giving way to a surge in investments in mega-infrastructure projects catering to logistical developments further reshaping the coasts. These infrastructural projects are often justified on the grounds of financial forecasting for a ‘prosperous’ and ‘secure’ future. However, translations of such a dominant imaginary of the promised future-in-the-making of specific infrastructures don’t happen as smoothly and seamlessly as they might appear to, all the more so given that the logistical-infrastructural promise, far from a totalizing and coherent project, remains riddled with frictions and contestations. Focusing on some of the contested infrastructural-projects unfolding in a climate-vulnerable coastal region on the east coast of India, this paper examines the material contradictions and competing imaginaries at play in transforming the Bay of Bengal’s littoral zones into techno-infrastructural scaffolds for logistical futures. The littoral spaces of Bengal, which had mostly remained marginal both geographically and politically, have recently been garnering attention for some spectacular infrastructural-projects including a proposed deep-sea port, a flagship coastal road project, an under-construction missile-launching platform etc.; and these projects have given way to a multitude of affective responses which are mostly anticipatory yet politically consequential for the present. Counteracting the dominant, totalizing storyline of a seemingly smooth logistical expansion as put forth by the mainstream discourse, this paper renders intelligible the intersections of economic rationality, competing infrastructural-visions, and material politics that converge in the making of logistical futures in a climate-changed world.