The politics of international development

He is particularly interested in how large inter-regional infrastructures have shaped the development programmes and imaginative geographies of a succession of imperial powers in Asia. Britain, Japan, the US, and most recently China have all tried to imagine Asia as an imperfectly integrated region that could be rearranged through the construction of a variety of large physical infrastructures, such as ports, railways, highways and energy networks.

His research on inter-Asian infrastructures was prompted by a political debate in Pakistan about the infusion of Chinese capital into the country, under the umbrella of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Would this flood of capital be good for the country’s economy and political development – or would it lock Pakistan into a dependent and damaging relationship to a stronger power?