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New Approaches

 

Resource Frontiers will shape three core anthropological debates:

 

Hydraulic sovereignty

Our project will re-evaluate social scientific theorisations of space-based sovereignty through a focus on trans-border water: a substance that, through its fluidity, exceeds the ability to be comprehensively governed

 

Trans-border resource nationalism

We will conceptually broaden studies of resource nationalism – including its Sinophobic dimensions - by asking how its forms are shaped in relation to waters spanning national borders and in relation to legal concepts shaped in different jurisdictions

 

Mega-infrastructure

We will deepen social scientific analysis of mega-infrastructure projects related to water extraction and hydroelectricity generation, asking how infrastructure becomes a key 'thing' through which people understand what frontiers are