Edward Simpson (Lancaster University)
| Dates: | 11 December 2023 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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Edward Simpson (Lancaster University): State Highway 31: Infrastructure, climate change and a multi-scalar ethnographic approach to no behaviour change.
This talk follows the route of State Highway 31 through western Madhya Pradesh, central India. The research was part of a larger project looking at the ideas behind the production of infrastructure, asking why so many roads were being built in South Asia. This journey takes us through landscapes of sex work and opium, some of the oldest nationalist networks in the country, and along the fault-lines of long-running tensions between local communities. The road was one of a series built as a public private partnership and, as such, speaks of the reconfiguration of state relations with private capital and business. Toll booths become places of company ethos, education and for the creation of new kinds of citizens. The nexus of government and private enterprise takes us on a dizzying journey through the world’s tax havens and onto the decks of luxury yachts. Exploring the broader political economy of the road and the organisation of institutions and travellers that sustain it encourages questions about the nature of governance and power – and the utter complexity of changing the way things are done.
Travel and Contact Information
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2.016/017 2nd Floor Boardroom
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
