The Intimacy of largescale water infrastructure: intersections with India's National River Linking Project

Keywords: infrastructure, water, gender, India, political ecology
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 50

Abstract

In this paper, I engage Ara Wilson's notion of "the infrastructure of intimacy" to explore how large-scale water infrastructure enables the intimate operation of sociocultural and neoliberal power via intimate encounters with discursive and material water infrastructures. To do so, the paper examines India's National River Linking Project, which once complete will result in the world's largest inter-basin water transfer infrastructure. To advance the infrastructure of intimacy concept, I draw on an analysis of state policy documents and programs, as well as interviews with male and female farmers. The paper finds, first, that state policies and outreach activities utilize institutional and material infrastructure to attempt to subjectify farmers in terms of state goals of transferring water out of irrigation and into urban spaces to serve GDP growth. Farmers sometimes accept or reject these efforts based on their multiple access of difference and positionally. Second, farmers have experienced reduced access to irrigation as a result of water transfers. Taken together, these form intimate encounters with large-scale water infrastructure that reveal the operation of sociocultural and neoliberal power. I conclude the paper with a discussion of future opportunities for exploring "the infrastructure of intimacy" and the intimacy of infrastructure.