Sri Lanka: Alessandra Radicati on Crisis, Conjuncture & Concrete Politics - Ethnographic Notes on the Colombo Port City Project (10-11-2021)

The Colombo Port City project represents the largest single Foreign Direct Investment in Sri Lankan history. The controversial project, a collaboration between the Sri Lankan and Chinese governments, is symbolic of Colombo’s inclusion in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This investigation of the Port City project uses ethnography to understand its effects on Colombo life. Rather than viewing the Port City project as yet another example of spectacular infrastructure failing to live up to its promises, I argue that ethnographic attention to infrastructure must focus on the concrete politics of the moment. I outline the various perspectives for and against the project to delineate how the project mobilized different class groups within the city, and to trace its connections to pre-existing political tendencies. Ultimately, I suggest a re-orientation of critical studies of infrastructure away from a focus on uncertainty, ambiguity and failure towards the concrete politics of the conjuncture.