Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses driving factors behind the transformation of peri-urban Chennai from rural remoteness into a global manufacturing hub. Whether to create a Special Economic Zone or abandon agriculture – it is suggested that actors pursue spatial strategies to realize their interests.

Paper long abstract:

Peri-urban Chennai, India, is undergoing a profound transformation as different actors seek to realize their interests. Interests often couched in a vision of development. This paper intends to show in how far space is instrumental in doing so. Foremost, it is the state government of Tamil Nadu that since the 1990ies deploys the spatial instrument of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to promote industrial development. SEZs are vast tax free zones, while often established against the will of local farmers they provide ideal investment sites for multinational corporations. In the wake of this process, other actors seize the opportunity to develop peri-urban spaces according to their interests and capacity to produce space: real-estate developers buy lands from farmers and sell to new residents attracted by modernist visions of the peri-urban; engineering colleges buy vast lands to educate; farmers stop farming to build residential space for the growing workforce.

To understand how space is instrumental for the different actors, Lefebvre's theory of the production of space will be applied. That is, space is conceptualized having a material aspect, a formal representation and an emotional vision attached to it, all open for manipulation. Actors use these aspects to forge unique spatial strategies using space as an instrument.

These spatial strategies were explored with interviews, analysis of government publications, newspapers reports and companies websites. Based on this, the paper will discuss how different visions of peri-urban development are realized on the ground by pursuing specific spatial strategies.