How do ‘Mega-Infrastructure Projects’ lead to disenchantment?

Mega-Infrastructure Projects (MIPs) represent a central element of globalized development. MIPs like the Chinese driven ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) include large-scale agrarian, road, rail, port and energy networks.

These are complex ventures involving international capital and multiple stakeholders. MIPs such as large-scale solar-, wind- and biofuel projects are presented as ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ ventures, but they can lead to disenchantment and dispossession.

In a talk at the Institute of Development Studies on 18 September, Tobias Haller (Bern University Institute for Anthropology) introduced a book about MIPs, their impacts, and local people’s responses to them in different settings around the world.

The talk was hosted by the Centre for Future Natures and the Resource Politics research cluster, IDS.


Listen to the talk

Our YouTube channel has an audio-only recording of Tobias Haller’s talk.

To learn more, read the book Disenchanted Modernities, published by LIT Verlag in 2024.

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