Chinese infrastructure as spatial fix? A political ecology of development finance and irrigation in Cambodia

Bibliographic Data

ID20154097
AuthorsW Nathan Green (0000-0002-0498-5623, Department of Geography National University of Singapore Singapore, corresponding author), Rosa Yi (0000-0003-1650-1726, Department of Geography National University of Singapore Singapore)
Year2024
Volume45
Issue2
Pages181-203
Publication date2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSingapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/sjtg.12523
OpenAlexW4389326364
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited52

China has recently become an agent of intensified agricultural production in Southeast Asia by constructing large‐scale irrigation systems. Funded with Chinese development finance, such infrastructure projects have been interpreted as a ‘spatial fix’ for capital accumulation in China, which helps explain the shifting balance of power within the region's political economy. However, we argue that explaining the local outcomes of these projects requires mapping out Chinese development finance in relation to the multi‐scalar network of actors, circuits of capital, and struggles over water that produce irrigated landscapes. We draw on our joint research about the Chinese‐funded and built Kanghot Irrigation Development Project in Cambodia. We explain how the construction of Kanghot was shaped by the historical and political relations between China and Cambodia. Since completion in 2016, Kanghot irrigation has transformed agricultural production by enrolling farmers into a network of volatile commodity markets and harmful pest ecologies. There have also been ongoing community struggles over Kanghot's water due to the project's design and institutional management. By broadening the idea of infrastructure as spatial fix to include these material and social processes of agrarian landscape production, this paper advances a political ecology of Chinese development finance in Southeast Asia

Agrarian society · Agricultural productivity · Agriculture · China · Economic growth · Economics · Political ecology · Political science · Politics · Cambodian History and Society · Ecology · Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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