2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
The Great Hydraulic Transition: colonial engineers and modern rivers in South Asia
| Project/Area Number |
16K01981
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
デスーザ ローハン 京都大学, アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科, 准教授 (60767903)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | Environmental History / Colonial engineering / Perennial Irrigation / Flood control / Large dams / British India |
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| Outline of Annual 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. The active pursuit of large dam construction by governments in South Asia have become sources for considerable political disquiet. Anti-dam movements have not only acquired considerable traction in many civil society led protests but, critically as well, questions have emerged about the role of modern engineering in driving such quests for gigantic hydraulic manipulation.
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