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The Great Hydraulic Transition: colonial engineers and modern rivers in South Asia

Research Project

Project/Area Number 16K01981
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Section一般
Research Field Area studies
Research InstitutionKyoto University

Principal Investigator

D'souza Rohan  京都大学, アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科, 准教授 (60767903)

Project Period (FY) 2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2019)
Budget Amount *help
¥4,680,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,080,000)
Fiscal Year 2018: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2017: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
KeywordsEnvironmental History / Colonial engineering / Perennial Irrigation / Flood control / Large dams / British India / Rivers / Colonialism / Modernity / Volumes / Pulses / Hydraulic Transition / South Asia / Engineering / Floods / Colonial Engineering / Dams / Embankments / 南アジア
Outline of Final Research Achievements

The project titled as ‘The Great Hydraulic Transition’ was aimed at examining the technical and political worlds of colonial engineering in British India to reconsider both the current historiography on river control in South Asia and to suggest that ‘other’ environmental imaginations for harnessing and managing flows are possible. In other words, the project aimed to offer a critique of the standard narrative on the origins of contemporary river control in South Asia. The emphasis was on studying nineteenth and early twentieth century British colonial engineering reports, documents, surveys, memoirs, biographies, training manuals and water management debates. The research, in essence, would enable me to argue that the idea of ‘river control’ was principally pursued as a profound ideological project rather than as a technical arrangement in South Asia.

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究により、私は南アジアの河川系が「流れ」から「ストック」に変化したという独自の主張をすることが可能になった。 すなわち、現代の河川管理は、南アジアの河川の生態学的特性を根本的に変えたということである。 以前は地域の湿地文化によって利用可能な自由に流れる川であったのに対し、ストックとしての現代の川は、多年生の灌漑と水力発電の目的のために流用された。 さらに、そのような変化の中で、洪水は肥料としての特性から重んじられるのではなく、悲惨な災害として認識されるようになった。 要するに、本研究では、現代の河川管理が生態系に悪影響を及ぼすことを示している。

Report

(5 results)
  • 2019 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report ( PDF )
  • 2018 Research-status Report
  • 2017 Research-status Report
  • 2016 Research-status Report
  • Research Products

    (28 results)

All 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 Other

All Journal Article (6 results) (of which Peer Reviewed: 3 results) Presentation (17 results) (of which Int'l Joint Research: 2 results) Book (3 results) Remarks (2 results)

  • [Journal Article] ‘Event, Process and Pulse: Resituating Floods in Environmental Histories of South Asia’2020

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      Environment and History, Special Issue: ‘Disasters and the Making of Asian History’, Chris Courtney & Fiona Williamson (ed.)

      Volume: 26 Pages: 31-49

    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
    • Peer Reviewed
  • [Journal Article] ‘Event, Process and Pulse: Resituating Floods in Environmental Histories of South Asia’2020

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      Environment and History, Special Issue: ‘Disasters and the Making of Asian History’

      Volume: 印刷中

    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Journal Article] ‘Scarcity, Environmentalism and the Politics of Pre-Emption: reconsidering the environmental histories of South Asia in the epoch of the Anthropocene’2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      Geoforum

      Volume: 101 Pages: 242-249

    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report 2018 Research-status Report
    • Peer Reviewed
  • [Journal Article] ‘Should Clean Energy be Politics as Usual? Reflections on India’s Energy Transition Quest’2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs

      Volume: Vol.4, No.2, winter Pages: 38-44

    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report 2018 Research-status Report
    • Peer Reviewed
  • [Journal Article] ‘Re-imagining the Northeast in India, Again: Did Geography Sidestep History in Vision (2020)?’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      Northeast India : A Reader, Routledge: London

      Volume: - Pages: 436-452

    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Journal Article] ‘Environmental History of India: An Overview’2018

    • Author(s)
      S. Ravi Rajan and Rohan D’Souza
    • Journal Title

      The Great Convergence: Environmental Histories of BRICS, Oxford University Press

      Volume: - Pages: 274-295

    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘The Great Hydraulic Transition: colonial engineering and the making of modern rivers in South Asia’2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D'souza
    • Organizer
      Centre for India and South Asia Research, Interdisciplinary Research Cluster, The University of British Columbia (Vancouver)
    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Futures without a Past: are environmental histories of South Asia still possible in the Epoch of Humans (the Anthropocene) ?2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D'souza
    • Organizer
      Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, The University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus)
    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Art, Environmental History and the “Politics of Nature” in the Anthropocene’2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D'souza
    • Organizer
      Mayday Artists, Activists and Environmental Historians Conference, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, UK
    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
  • [Presentation] ‘The Great Hydraulic Transition : Colonial engineering and the making of modern rivers in South Asia’2019

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Rising Waters: After Engineering, Rivers and the Life of Floods, the PENN program for Environmental Studies, University of Pennsylvania and Tata Institute of Social Sciences
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Environmental Change and the Politics of Pre-emption: Reconsidering Environmental Histories of South Asia in the Anthropocene’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Histories & Ecologies of Health International Conference, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Amphibians to Reptiles: How Colonial Eastern India became ‘land centred’ and ‘flood vulnerable’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Multi-dimensionalising Land, Workshop, Organized by the Land Global Challenges Research Fund and Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Anthropocene Rain and Soaked Concrete: can policy-making rescue the ‘flooded Asian City ?’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Water Heritage in Asian Cities, Symposium, Academy of Social Sciences, (Shanghai, China)
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Are Environmental Histories of South Asia still possible in the Epoch of the Anthropocene ?’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Panel C55-08 : The Anthropocene in Asia (Wednesday 26th September, 2018) in World Social Science Forum: Security and Equality for Sustainable Futures, Fukuoka, Japan
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Connectivity has no Pulse: rivers as a biological challenge to infrastructure in Asia’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] g)‘Writing South Asian Environmental History in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      International Conference on Bihar and Jharkhand: Shared History to Shared Vision, ADRI Silver Jubilee Celebration
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Alternative Imaginations and Zero-Sum Games: Reconceptualizing the Trans-Boundary River Challenge for China and India’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      The Second China-India Workshop on Development and Governance, Dr. Seaker Chan Center for Comparative Political Development Studies
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘National Culture to Consumer to Citizen of the World: Reflections on Higher Education and the University System in the Epoch of the Anthropocene’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      Conference on Innovation in Education, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Environmental History and the Humanities for South Asia: reconsidering large dams and resource politics in the Anthropocene’2018

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Organizer
      International Workshop on Environmental Humanities in Asia: Ecological Crisis and Cultural Responses
    • Related Report
      2018 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] The Great Hydraulic Transition: Colonial engineering and the making of Modern Rivers in South Asia2017

    • Author(s)
      D'Souza Rohan Ignatious
    • Organizer
      Asian Research Institute, National University Singapore, Singapore
    • Related Report
      2017 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘Sustainability against “Safe Operating Space”: India’s cusec-megawatt rivers and writing environmental history in the Anthropocene’, Environmental Justice and Sustainable Citizenship2017

    • Author(s)
      D'Souza Rohan Ignatious
    • Organizer
      Global Asia Initiative (GAI) at Duke and Duke Kunshan University, Conference on Environmental Humanities in Asia, Kunshan (China),
    • Related Report
      2017 Research-status Report
  • [Presentation] ‘All Unquiet on the ‘Great Himalayan Watershed’: India, China, Bangladesh and a Trans-Boundary River’2016

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D'Souza
    • Organizer
      5th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network
    • Place of Presentation
      Kathmandu (Nepal)
    • Year and Date
      2016-12-12
    • Related Report
      2016 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Presentation] ‘Floods, Disasters and Re-tooling History : Can cross-disciplinary dialogues help Policy-making?’2016

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D'Souza
    • Organizer
      Conference on Disastrous Pasts: New Directions in Asian Disaster History
    • Place of Presentation
      National University Singapore
    • Year and Date
      2016-11-21
    • Related Report
      2016 Research-status Report
    • Int'l Joint Research
  • [Book] Commonwealth Forestry and Environmental History: Empire Forests and Colonial Environments in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and New Zealand2020

    • Author(s)
      Vinita Damodaran and Rohan D’Souza, (eds.)
    • Total Pages
      618
    • Publisher
      Primus Books: New Delhi
    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
  • [Book] Geography in Britain after World War II: Nature, Climate, and the Etchings of TimeGeography in Britain after World War II: Nature, Climate, and the Etchings of Time2019

    • Author(s)
      Max Martin, Vinita, Damodaran, Rohan D'Souza, (eds)
    • Total Pages
      231
    • Publisher
      Palgrave Macmillan: UK
    • Related Report
      2019 Annual Research Report
  • [Book] ‘Pulses against Volumes: Trans-boundary Rivers and Pan-Asian Connectivity’ in Sumit Ganguly and Karen Stool Farell (ed.), Heading East: The Dynamics of Security, Trade, and Environment between India and Southeast Asia2016

    • Author(s)
      Rohan D’Souza
    • Total Pages
      292
    • Publisher
      Oxford University Press: New Delhi
    • Related Report
      2016 Research-status Report
  • [Remarks] 京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科グローバル地域研究専攻教員紹介

    • URL

      https://www.asafas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/global/staff/rohan/

    • Related Report
      2017 Research-status Report
  • [Remarks] 個人ホームページ

    • URL

      https://www.asafas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dsouza/

    • Related Report
      2017 Research-status Report

URL: 

Published: 2016-04-21   Modified: 2021-02-19  

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