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Paper short abstract:

Comparing a few imperial settings across time and space suggests that high modernism needs to be enacted at the local level, and is less temporally restricted than the concept suggests. Power is not an outside force waiting to be manifested, power is enacted continuously through infrastructures.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I propose a comparative discussion on selected imperial settings across time and space to be able to suggest that 1) high modernism needs to be enacted at the local level, and 2) high modernism may be less temporally restricted than the concept suggests. Indeed, colonial power in the 19th and 20th century was firmly based on irrigated production. At the same time, some 5000 years ago the Neo-Assyrian Empire empowered itself through large canal systems. Water control did not always create central states either. Dutch water developments supported both central and local involvement. Hohokam communities (0-1450 AD, USA) centralized water control, but not the state. Still, the typical image of imperial efforts – high modern or not – is of a centrally planned effort by state officials. My own work suggests that although loads of planning efforts were involved by many people and institutions, we should remember (Captain) Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean” when trying to understand imperial development: “Do you think he plans it all out, or does he make it up as he goes along?”. Far from ignoring power relations, I just refuse to make power the typical outside force waiting to be manifested. Power is being enacted continuously in societies through infrastructures. As such, Scott’s position on state power needs more than ‘Seeing like a state’ (Scott, 1999) – as the positions developed in ‘Weapons of the weak’ (Scott, 1985) and ‘The art of not being governed’ (Scott, 2009) are crucial additions.