Infrastructures with a Pinch of Salt: Comparative Techno-Politics of Desalination in Chennai and London
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Infrastructures with a Pinch of Salt: Comparative techno-politics of desalination in Chennai and London Thesis submitted to University College London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Niranjana Ramesh Department of Geography University College London April 2018 DECLARATION I, Niranjana Ramesh confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT Infrastructures, being technological networks that form the structural and social scaffolding of cities, have been symbiotic with modern urban development. Building on their socio-technical character, this thesis seeks to understand the technological mediation of political formations and environmental knowledges that shape notions of urban sustainability. It takes as its point of departure the construction of reverse osmosis desalination plants to augment water supply in two cities across the global South and North – Chennai, India and London, UK. It uses the analytic of infrastructure to excavate the complex reasons as to why and how desalination plants came to be built in these cities. Over a period of 10 months, oral and documentary narratives were gathered from institutions, professionals and citizens involved in water supply and access in the two cities. Based on a comparative reading of these texts and ethnographic field notes, the thesis focuses on the state and engineering practices as significant determinants of urban techno-natures. It demonstrates that infrastructures provide a mode of articulating statehood through mediation between technology, nature and society. It traces how engineers and other water professionals, through their everyday work, socialise those water systems, cultivating popular environmental knowledges. Finally, through a narrative of the contestations faced by the desalination plants, the thesis shows that urban infrastructural transitions give rise to distinct political formations. As water becomes infrastructure engendering technological practices and shared knowledges over which political relations are forged, there are clear differences in how this is materialised in Chennai and London. Using Chennai as the point of reference to frame the themes and issues through which to explore the London case, the study identifies within those differences potential starting points for theory building from the global south. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS One of the best things about doing this PhD was the fieldwork which gave me the opportunity to interact and work with a wide range of people who graciously shared their time, ideas and experiences with me. I am thankful for their generosity and patience. This project and its ethnographic explorations would not have been possible without the PhD Studentship and research support provided by the UCL Institute of Sustainable Resources and UCL Geography. I’m grateful for the award. The Department of Geography has also been like a second home during the last five years of living and working in London. I’m grateful for the intellectual and supportive working environment that its academic and administrative staff have created. I might have perhaps set the record for the most number of supervisors that a student can have in completing a PhD. My sincere gratitude go to Prof Andrew Barry, Prof Sarah Bell (Dept. of Civil Engineering) and Prof K Sivaramakrishnan (Yale University) for their inspiring ideas and the unconditional support they stepped in to give me during critical periods of the PhD. I’m also grateful to Dr N K Ambujam at the Centre for Water Resources, Anna University Chennai, for providing me with an institutional backing whenever it was needed during the hectic months of research there. All of this, however, started with my primary supervisor Dr Pushpa Arabindoo without whom the PhD might never have been. My heartfelt thanks for her unshakeable faith in my ability to do this work; her encouragement to explore any ideas I had, promising or otherwise; and her calm grounded support through my struggles with writing the thesis. I look forward to continued academic interaction with her and my other mentors. 4 The PhD viva that I awaited with much trepidation turned out to be an inspiring and even enjoyable experience, all thanks to my examiners Prof Abdoumaliq Simone and Prof Adriana Allen. They engaged with my work in the most supportive and encouraging manner possible, and pushed me to take my arguments and contribution that crucial step further. I’m immensely grateful for this and look forward to future interactions with them. Writing the thesis was a daunting prospect stretching over months of solitary work. But, my colleagues at the PhD offices in UCL Geography have made it an enjoyable journey through their warm sense of community, fuelled by shared lunches and endless cups of coffee. Along the way, I have managed to make a wonderful set of friends who, through their camaraderie, have made me feel like I belong. This is an invaluable contribution towards my finishing the PhD and for that, I’m thankful. Friends and family in India did not always understand why I wanted to ‘go back to university’ and often wondered when I would ‘ever finish studying’. But, that never stopped them from pitching in with suggestions and contacts and offering to let me stay in their homes while traveling for research. I’m grateful for their hospitality and friendship. My gratitude towards my parents extends far beyond their support during the PhD. It was their cultivation in me of an open spirit of enquiry and a love of all things geographical that got me interested in research and gave me the confidence to write about the world analytically. I’m thankful for the fun adventures and companionship that my mother, father and sister have nurtured me with over the years. My sister, of course, continues to indulge my requests for help during research – whether it is photographs, driving lessons or home cooked meals. As I wrote out and scratched many expressions of my appreciation for Shyam, my oldest friend, husband and now, partner in academic adventures, he looked over my shoulder and said “It’s okay, you don’t need to come up with more words after all this to thank me. It’s time to get some sleep now.” And so, there are literally no words to describe my gratitude for that total comfort he has given me over these years. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 11 1.1. The Case Studies ................................................................................................... 15 1.2. Thesis Outline ......................................................................................................... 22 2. SOCIO-TECHNICAL MEDIATION OF WATER: INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN THEORY AND HISTORY .................................................................................................. 26 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 26 2.2. Conquest of Nature ................................................................................................ 28 2.2.1. Negotiated modernity .................................................................................... 28 2.2.2. Fragmented legacy ......................................................................................... 31 2.2.3. Temples of Development ............................................................................... 33 2.3. Volatile water ......................................................................................................... 35 2.3.1. Changing beliefs ............................................................................................. 37 2.3.2. Disrupting binaries ......................................................................................... 40 2.4. Political Ecology ..................................................................................................... 43 2.4.1. Human natures .............................................................................................. 44 2.4.2. A response and an agenda ............................................................................. 47 2.4.3. Urban ecology ................................................................................................ 49 2.4.4. Circulations and metabolism of hybrids ........................................................ 51 2.4.5. Possibilities and limitations ............................................................................ 53 2.5. Technical, material and political ............................................................................ 56 2.6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 59 3. METHODOLOGY - REFLEXIVE ETHNOGRAPHY ............................................. 61 3.1. Introduction – Infrastructure as ontology and epistemology ................................ 61 3.2. Research design – following connections through ................................................ 67 3.3. In the field .............................................................................................................. 74 3.3.1. Chennai – ‘information drought’, but conversation rich ............................... 74 3.3.2. London – Outside the sites of infrastructure making .................................... 78 3.4. An experimental comparison – shall the twain