IOWC Speaker Series: Ayesha Vemuri
Ayesha Vemuri (Ph.D candidate in the Department of Art History and Communications Studies, 9I制作厂免费)聽
"The Case for Letting Assam Flood: Speculative Infrastructure in the Brahmaputra Floodplain"
The transnational Brahmaputra River is a site where ecological uncertainty, geopolitical anxiety, and state securitization converge. Flowing through Tibet, India, and Bangladesh, the river is central to both transnational tensions and domestic struggles over citizenship and land. This presentation traces how state discourse on China鈥檚 supposed 鈥渨eaponization鈥� of water and the threat of Bangladeshi 鈥渃limate refugees鈥� are linked through the logic of speculation. I argue that border, military, and surveillance infrastructures can be understood as forms of what I theorize as 鈥渟peculative infrastructure鈥濃�攑rojects that materialize imagined future threats, transforming uncertainty into a rationale for intervention in the present. In doing so, the talk contributes to debates on environmental media, infrastructure, and the speculative temporalities of state power in South Asia.
Light refreshments served.