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Paper short abstract

Through ethnography of distribution of electricity, the paper looks at the role of China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects as well as the role of international financial institutions that have turned electricity infrastructure into a site of ‘geopolitics’ in Pakistan.

Paper long abstract

Power outages are an everyday experience in Sindh, in the Southern region of Pakistan. In the summer months, with temperatures touching 50 C, power outages have a violent effect on one's everyday existence. Infrastructure of electricity in Pakistan has been shaped by the privatisation reforms, initiated by the World Bank in the 1990s. In the past three decades, for a large majority of the people in the country, electricity is experienced only with interruptions and disruptions. In such a context, the ‘presence’ not the absence brings the shock (Gupta, 2015). In 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects, were promoted by the Pakistani state to end the visceral effects of power outages.

Through ethnographic engagement of everyday distribution of electricity and analysis of privatisation reforms from the 1990s, the paper examines the electricity infrastructure which has become a site of ‘everyday geopolitics’ between the Pakistani state, the local and the international private corporations. I show how electricity outages, the theft of electricity, and protests against the rising bills are everyday negotiations between consumers of electricity and the entangled world of producers of electricity. Unlike other BRI projects in Pakistan, where geopolitical consideration of the project is shaped between two states, electricity infrastructure involves multiple actors and the results are shaped by truly entangled geopolitical relations.