A harbour in the country, a city in the sea: Infrastructural conduits, territorial inversions and the slippages of sovereignty in Sino-Sri Lankan development narratives

• Main Author: WOODS, Orlando
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: territorial inversions; infrastructural islands; slippages of sovereignty; BRI; Sri Lanka; Asian Studies; Geography; Infrastructure; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3449; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4706/viewcontent/Habor_Country_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper adopts infrastructure as a lens through which new understandings of the inter-relationships between territory and sovereignty can be advanced. It argues that inverting the terrestrial assumption of territory can lead to “slippages” of sovereignty in which territorial sovereignty is indirectly claimed through the assertion of governance rights. For the purposes of this paper, I explore these inversions through the reclaiming of land from the ocean, and the removal of land by the ocean. Drawing on ethnographic research exploring the effects of China-backed infrastructure megaprojects in Sri Lanka, these territorial inversions are explored, respectively, through the Port City Colombo project – in which territory is claimed from the ocean through the creation of an island infrastructure – and the Hambantota International Port project – in which territory is removed by the ocean through the creation of a man-made port. Both projects reveal the ways in which infrastructure investments are implicated in the region-building ambitions of the Belt and Road Initiative, and thus provide conduits through which Chinese sovereignty can be asserted. As conduits, they foreground the realisation, but also the reimagination, of what “islandness” can mean in/to post-war Sri Lanka.