Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

11-2022

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which infrastructural development can cause the sacred to become a source of political legitimacy, and sacred authority to become a politically charged construct. For resource-dependent communities, the ecological damage caused by infrastructural development can cause ostensibly profane issues to be imbued with sacred meaning and value. With sacralization comes the expectation that figures of sacred authority will campaign for justice on behalf of the communities that they represent. However, when the authority evoked comes from outside the boundaries of institutionalized religion, processes of suprasacralization come into play. By exploring infrastructure’s (supra)sacralizing effects, I demonstrate how environmental ontologies can provide a competing basis for transcendence. In turn, this can reveal the politically progressive role of the sacred in eroding the legitimacy of institutionalized religion. I illustrate these ideas through an empirical analysis of the effects of the China-backed Port City Colombo project on Catholic fishing communities located along Sri Lanka’s western coastline. Drawing on ethnographic data, I explore how littoral spaces of fishing, faith, and futurity have become contested through the claiming of (supra)sacred places of power and justice.

Keywords

Infrastructure, (supra)sacralization, environmental ontologies, Sri Lanka, BRI.

Discipline

Asian Studies | Human Geography | Infrastructure

Research Areas

Humanities

Publication

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

Volume

112

Issue

8

First Page

2344

Last Page

2359

ISSN

2469-4452

Identifier

10.1080/24694452.2022.2053651

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Embargo Period

5-22-2023

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2053651

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