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- Convenors:
-
Danaé Leitenberg
(Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany)
Sabrina Stallone (University of Bern)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 02/013
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Proposing an understanding of growth as a concept bridging hope and transformation, this panel discusses unequal promises of progress via extractive development and their affective force in late-capitalist contexts. We ground these reflections around the so-called "promise of infrastructure".
Long Abstract:
With the emergence of the Anthropocene debate, notions of linear growth have been increasingly questioned. While a concomitance of crises prompted scholars and activists to rethink the faulty logics of capitalist growth, globally speaking, inequalities caused by extraction have deepened and expansion-oriented technologies have spread. Imaginaries of a brighter future achieved through accumulation too continue to exert their grip on many people and communities around the world, hoping for ideals of the good life inextricably linked with capitalism. Arguing for an understanding of growth as a concept at the conjunction of hope and transformation, we aim to discuss ethnographic examinations of promises of 'progress via extractive sprawl and development' and their affective force in late-capitalist contexts.
We propose to ground these reflections around the planning of infrastructural projects and what anthropological scholarship has recently called "the promise of infrastructure" (Anand, Appel and Gupta 2018), consisting of calls for a transformative future that "exceeds the present" (Gupta 2018: 63). Beyond the often proposed claim that infrastructural projects are aimed towards achieving a particular "common good", responding to preexisting "publics", we follow a social-constructivist approach and are interested in how such publics and affective collectivities are summoned, performed and contested, based on differential affordances structured by gender, race, class, ableness, citizenship, etc. In other words, what are the hopes and threats wrapped around the making or contestation of infrastructural growth in late capitalism? What are the uneven impacts of the growth imperative? How can they be ethnographically captured?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 July, 2022, -Olga Povoroznyuk (University of Vienna)
Paper short abstract:
This paper drawing on ethnography of the Baikal-Amur Mainline in East Siberia, contributes to anthropological discussions about post-Soviet forms of postsocialism, modernization and identity building and explores infrastructure’s potential for transformation.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores large-scale railroad infrastructure as an embodiment of Soviet and post-Soviet state projects of modernization and identity construction. I apply an infrastructural lens to explore the entanglements of local communities with the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad line built in the 1970s and 1980s in East Siberia. I refer to the BAM as transformative infrastructure, as my research highlights the railroad’s agency in regional development and social dynamics. Drawing on my ethnography of the railroad towns and indigenous villages, I explore how the Soviet BAM built local communities and identities by attracting migrants and pulling indigenous residents into the orbit of modernization. Furthermore, I demonstrate how Soviet identities embodied in the railroad have been reconstructed recently and recycled in public discourses and media campaigns surrounding the BAM-2 program. I argue that this postsocialist politics of identity and emotion aims at re-enchanting local residents with promises of modernity and rebuilding the loyalty of citizens to the postsocialist state in an era of socio-economic decline. While my research contributes to anthropological discussions about post-Soviet forms of modernization and identity building, it also explores infrastructure’s potential for transformation.
Jialing Luo (Sichuan University)
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the dramatic transformations of the suburbs of a Chinese city, this paper explores the ways in which infrastructures are planned and constructed in relation to the shifting narratives of the state over time. It examines inequalities generated by infrastructure development.
Paper long abstract:
Dongjiao refers to the Eastern suburbs of Chengdu, the metropolis of Western China. It became the settlement of a large number of Hakkas, who migrated here from afar in the 17th century. Comprising mainly agricultural and uncultivated land, Dongjiao did not start to industrialise until the 1950s, when the socialist state designated this area as an industrial base. Infrastructures including factories, roads and railways were rapidly built. Engineers, cadres and college graduates were assigned to work here. There was an obvious division between the local peasants, many of them the Hakkas, and those who worked at the factory, in terms of income, social welfare, status and life style. However, as the state became increasingly capitalistic economically, the late 1990s witnessed the large-scale restructuring of state enterprises and the decline of the manufacturing sector. Consequently, many workers were laid off and re-employment difficult. In the early 21st century, the massive state-led redevelopment took place in Dongjiao. The new infrastructure, featuring high-rise residential towers, shopping malls, and underground subways, emerged to re-define Dongjiao as part of the expanding city centre. While many former factory workers were rendered economically disadvantaged, most former peasants became better off after gaining compensation from the state for their loss of land.
Drawing on the concept of the "promise of infrastructure", and seeing infrastructure development as "fundamentally a political process", this paper goes beyond the grand narratives of the state and examines the little narratives of the everyday experience of the residents in Dongjiao at different times.
Manon-Julie Borel (University of Bern)
Paper short abstract:
Exploring the impacts of the negotiations on the reopening of the border between Armenia and Turkey on the people in Armenia, this paper discusses the uneasy aspects of the promises of border infrastructures. It aims to disrupt discourses of linearity and progress in conflict transformation.
Paper long abstract:
Against the background of the currently shifting world order by the latest Russian invasion into Ukraine, the Armenian borders and boundaries with Turkey and Azerbaijan (both guarded by Russian military) too are subject of new movements, attentions, damages and promises. The territorial sealing and failed attempts at diplomatic rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey originate in diplomatic disputes regarding the recognition of the Armenian genocide, which peaked in 1915, and the ongoing territorial conflict between Armenia and Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan over the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh. In these “uneasy times” (Pandian: 2019) reopening the border as “progressing step” towards peace within discourses of conflict transformation however widely provokes fears in the Armenian society. What affective ambiguities – promises of economic opportunities, hopes, fears, economic and military threats - does the reopening of the border infrastructures evoke in the people in Armenia? How are the border infrastructures instrumentalized in order to unite as well as divide in this ethno-nationalized conflict?
Basing my analysis on the “Promise of Infrastructure” (Annand, Appel and Gupta 2018) I aim to explore how the lived experiences of people with the mentioned border infrastructures challenge what could be seen as a promising milestone in conflict transformation. This paper questions the linear and state-centered understanding of conflict transformation processes, predicting growth, progress and peace in an uneasy, post-capitalist environment. It aims to blur the dichotomous separations between war and peace as well as stagnation and progress in the Armenian-Turkish diplomatic conflict
Philipp Budka (University of Vienna)
Paper short abstract:
Through the failures and promises of transport infrastructure, this paper looks into infrastructural affordances in the remote subarctic town of Churchill, Canada.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores changes in the transport infrastructure of the remote town of Churchill in northern Manitoba, Canada. The town of about 900 residents is located on the 58th parallel north at the Hudson Bay and has become known as the “polar bear capital of the world”. Churchill is unique in terms of transportation. Canada’s only deep-water port on the Arctic Ocean is located there. And this port is the only port in the American (Sub)Arctic with a direct link to the North American railway network. The town, which is inaccessible via roads, only exists because of these transport infrastructures.
In 2017, when a flood washed out railway tracks, this infrastructural entanglement once again became apparent. Suddenly, Churchill was without overland access and life changed drastically. Food and other items had to be flown in at high costs and residents utilized snowmobile trails to reduce transportation costs. The port had to close, people lost their jobs and families left. The town negotiated with the province, the state and the company which owned the railway to get the tracks fixed. After 18 months, they were finally repaired. In 2021, however, the port again was closed for grain shipping due to renovations.
By discussing results of a first ethnographic field trip to Churchill, this paper focuses on the failures and promises of transport infrastructures. Churchill is one of several field sites in the ERC project InfraNorth, which looks into affordances of transport infrastructures on a pan-Arctic scale through an anthropological lens.