Producing 'So-So' Infrastructure for National Energy Security at the North Karanpura Coalfields in Eastern India

Sammanfattning

This paper examines transport infrastructure of only middling quality at a Jharkhand coalfield as supporting rather than preventing national energy security. The modest technical efficiency of the infrastructure emerges from a need to align the national provision of energy with a complex political ecology of coal in which various actors seek benefits from its 'safe' transport, supply coal to cottage industries and provide alternative livelihoods for the displaced. Unlike in Mitchell's Carbon Democracy, Jharkhand's 'so-so' coal infrastructure ensures delivery of coal by being dispersed and flexible, thereby allowing supply by avoiding blockades from influential groups close to the mines.

Nyckelord

Coal transport; energy security; infrastructure; Jharkhand; Maoists; materiality; political ecology

Publicerad i

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies
2017, volym: 40, nummer: 4, sidor: 895-909

SLU författare

• Oskarsson, Patrik

  • Institutionen för stad och land, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen (SDG)

SDG7 Hållbar energi för alla
SDG9 Hållbar industri, innovationer och infrastruktur
SDG16 Fredliga och inkluderande samhällen

UKÄ forskningsämne

Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2017.1375042

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/85226