Infrastructure, Circulation, and Ecology in the Maldives
Infrastructure, Circulation, and Ecology in the Maldives
- Luke HeslopLuke HeslopDepartment of Anthropoogy, Brunel University London
- , and Lubna HawwaLubna HawwaIndependent Scholar
Summary
In the Maldives, interconnected human and ecological systems of circulation both sustain and corrode social, cultural, and environmental life. Therefore, a focus on infrastructure in the Maldives requires conceptualizing infrastructure as an assemblage of more-than-human networks and interactions.
As well as being a known category of public good, infrastructure in the Maldives is also experienced as an accumulation of networks and meeting points between the ecological and subaquatic world, and the world dreamed of, designed by, and built by people. Infrastructure encompasses the relationship between the islands in the Maldives, island inhabitants, the sea, networks of people, and the movement of people through the islands over time. In taking such an approach, attention must be paid to the significance of the ocean and its reefs as unruly infrastructures that shape the permissibility of life on the archipelago.
Keywords
Subjects
- Economic/Business
- Environmental
- Migration/Immigration/Diaspora
- South Asia