Roads and the politics of thought : Climate in India, democracy in Nepal

Abstract

The chapter presents the politics of thought as an analytical terrain through which to broach the themes at the heart of this volume: the inadvertent role of roads in reproducing and generating hierarchy, class inequality, and social disruption. In bringing together two major research projects led by the authors, we illustrate how roads have been engaged through critical social sciences as an epistemological as well as a material vector of change. By outlining methodological and conceptual approaches to large road and infrastructure projects in South Asia, we show how ideas build roads. The chapter draws attention to frequently overlooked aspects of road construction – such as how future environmental impacts are routinely ignored in the political processes and construction practices that constitute the making of roads.