Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean (New Mobilities in Asia)

Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social politics of road development and new mobilities in twenty-first-century Asia, this edited collection demonstrates that while new roads generate new forms of hierarchy, older forms of hierarchy are remade and re-established in creative and surprising new ways. Focused on South Asia but speaking to more global phenomena, the chapters collectively reveal how road planning, construction and usage routinely yield a simultaneous reinforcement and disruption of social, political and economic relations. Cover -- Table Of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Thinking With Roads -- Penny Harvey -- 1. Why Highways Remake Hierarchies -- Luke Heslop And Galen Murton -- 2. Stuck On The Side Of The Road -- Mobility, Marginality, And Neoliberal Governmentality In Nepal -- Galen Murton And Tulasi Sharan Sigdel -- 3. A Road To The 'hidden Place' -- Road Building And State Formation In Medog, Tibet -- Yi Huang -- 4. Dhabas, Highways, And Exclusion -- Swargajyoti Gohain -- 5. The Edge Of Kaladan -- A 'spectacular' Road Through 'nowhere' On The India-myanmar Borderlands -- Jasnea Sarma 6. The Making Of A 'new Dubai' -- Infrastructural Rhetoric And Development In Pakistan -- Mustafa A. Khan -- 7. Encountering Chinese Development In The Maldives -- Gifts, Hospitality, And Rumours -- Luke Heslop And Laura Jeffery -- 8. Roads And The Politics Of Thought -- Climate In India, Democracy In Nepal -- Katharine Rankin And Edward Simpson -- Authors Notes -- Index -- List Of Figures -- Figure 3.1 A Crashed Vehicle Lying In The River Valley -- Figure 3.2 Yellow Prayer Flags Standing On The Medog Highway -- Figure 3.3 Medog County Seat And The Yalu Zangbu River Figure 4.1 Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba, Murthal, Nh 1 -- Figure 4.2 Anurag Dhaba, Nagaon Bypass, Nh 37 -- Figure 4.3 Trucks Parked Outside A Line Dhaba, Nh 37 -- Figure 4.4 Inside A Line Dhaba, Nh 1 -- Figure 6.1 Pictures Of Container Hotel Electronic Reproduction. Baltimore, Md Available Via World Wide Web. This edited collection explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social politics of road development and new mobilities in 21st-century Asia, it demonstrates that while new roads generate new forms of hierarchy, older forms of hierarchy are remade and re-established in creative and surprising new ways. Focused on South Asia but speaking to more global phenomena, the chapters collectively reveal how road planning, construction and usage routinely yield a simultaneous reinforcement and disruption of social, political, and economic relations.