Presentation short abstract

Anchoring the narrative in a climate-vulnerable, contested coastal road project and an indeterminate logistical future, this paper articulates unruliness as a generative spatio-temporal rhythm fostered as much by the dissenting voices of coastal communities as by the dynamic littoral materialities.

Presentation long abstract

In 2021 when a catastrophic tropical cyclone wreaked havoc on coastal Bengal, the storm and tidal surges damaged several material infrastructures including parts of an under-construction coastal road project popularly known as the Marine Drive ('Saikat Sarani' in local language). This was, however, not the first setback the project had encountered; the unruly, amphibious wetscape of the coast has repeatedly disrupted the infrastructural effort, all the more so against the contemporary backdrop of increasing frequency of cyclones and tidal floods affecting the region. Furthermore, the project has faced resistance from certain segments of coastal communities and small-scale fishers' collectives who have voiced their opposition on the ground that the infrastructural project allegedly encroaches on some of their individually-owned land as well as shared communal spaces, including collectively-used fish-drying grounds along the shoreline. The Marine Drive, a flagship project of the state government, is an integral component of the larger infrastructural vision of transforming the littoral edges into frontiers for logistical expansion, seamless connectivity, and economic prosperity. Foregrounding frictions, resistance, and uncertainties that counteract the dominant, totalizing storyline of a seemingly smooth logistical expansion, this paper conceptualizes unruliness as generative spatio-temporal rhythms fostered as much by the dissenting voices of coastal communities as by the geophysical limits that the dynamic materialities of the amphibious coastal ecotones engender - both of which expose the fragile foundations of the logistical promise entrenched in the marine drive project and the indeterminacy of logistical future that it seeks to materialize in a climate-changed world.