Political Economy of Road Building in Nepal: Limits of Social Transformative Change

This dissertation examines the relationship among road building, critical consciousness and social relations in Nepal, with a focus on rural roads as a key site of socio-political action. After the Maoist revolution (1996- 2006), roads have become a primary site, not only of investment in “post-conflict” state-building but also of people’s aspirations for self-governance. At the same time, road building provides opportunities for elites and foreign donors to consolidate power and dominance. Thus, I consider road building as an important but under-examined terrain of hegemonic practice, as well as a potential site for transformative social relations. The dissertation poses three questions: First, what governmental rationalities of road building have shaped planning processes, and what policies and programs have resulted? Second, how do road-building processes manifest prevailing social relations? Third, what critiques or alternative visions have been articulated and what are the limits and possibilities for transformative social change? It draws on three theoretical frameworks. Political economy prompts queries about histories of regional integration and contemporary territorializing regimes. Cultural politics facilitates consideration of how road building reproduces or challenges prevailing social relations, and what critiques or alternative visions have been articulated. Critical adult education emphasizes connecting analysis to praxis. These theoretical inquiries entail dialectically examining how social relations build roads and are in turn constituted through road-building processes. The research design is ethnographic—engaging both semi-structured interviews (with diverse actors involved in road building) and archival analysis (of development grey literature and local media). Participant observation allows for triangulating findings and exploring the gap between what people say and what they do, as well as the gap between what policies indicate and what happens in practice. The dissertation argues that official rationalities become distorted as they encounter social relations, and also that those engaged in road building must navigate complex power dynamics as they seek to enrich themselves and their families. Road development serves to reproduce existing relations of domination; resistance seems futile and is rare. At the same time, there is evidence of critique, which sometimes takes a public form, suggesting that it could become the foundation for more collective action.Ph.D