Post-disaster Development Zones and Dry Ports as Geopolitical Infrastructures in Nepal

Abstract

Economic activity is central to development zones and represents a core dynamic from which a host of other relationships radiate outwards. While economic logics consistently motivate and produce the development of such zones, the resultant activities are always much more than economic. That is, the development of development zones also sets in motion new configurations of political power and socio-spatial domination. Following this line of thinking, this chapter examines the proliferating development of new import-export dry ports in the Nepal-China borderlands to understand how geopolitical relationships are grounded, localised, and reconfigured through infrastructural projects. Taking Nepal’s post-disaster development landscape as both a point of departure and site of inquiry, I show that the making of development zones in post-disaster environments accomplishes interrelated objectives of state-led territorialisation and economic expansion across a range of social and spatial scales.