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Infrastructure Nation: State Space, Hegemony, and Hydraulic Regionalism in Pakistan
Author(s) -
Akhter Majed
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12152
Subject(s) - hegemony , regionalism (politics) , sociology , nationalism , political economy , bureaucracy , ideology , political science , economic system , politics , law , economics , democracy
Large‐scale infrastructures are often understood by state planners as fulfilling a national integrative function. This paper challenges the idea of infrastructures as national integrators by engaging theories of state/nation formation and infrastructure in a postcolonial context. Specifically, I put Lefebvre's characterization of the production of state space as a homogenization‐differentiation dialectic in conversation with Gramsci's understanding of hegemony, bureaucracy, and nationalism to analyze the controversy surrounding the giant Tarbela Dam in Pakistan in the 1960s. I use the Tarbela controversy as a case study to elaborate a theory of postcolonial nation‐formation through state‐led infrastructural projects. I argue that in a postcolonial context the failure to articulate a hegemonic nationalist ideology to accompany the production of large‐scale infrastructure results in a fragmentation of state space in some ways, even as state space is homogenized and integrated in other ways. The paper also offers a “hydraulic lens” on the politics of regionalism in Pakistan.