Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land Reclamation, Urbanization, and Infrastructural Development

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

Land reclamation is increasingly being relied upon by coastal cities responding to the pressures of intensified urbanization. While there is a long history of human settlements reclaiming land from water bodies to generate more habitable area for human activity, reclamation is no longer limited to smaller scale draining of swamps or the infilling of lakes and rivers to facilitate industry and agriculture. As more cities are reclaiming land from the sea in an effort to solve the problem of land scarcity, how is the relationship between human beings and the natural and built environment being reshaped and negotiated? In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project would enhance scientific understanding by broadly disseminating its findings to organizations with the aim of improving understanding how reclamation has altered physical landscapes and social relations. The project will produce data critical for those developing policies and urban planning strategies that can address the environmental and social costs associated with reclamation. The research will be conducted in a municipality that has reclaimed substantial portions of its current land area and plans to continue accruing more land space through a variety of technological methods. The city's willingness to engage in the latest technology to facilitate its terraforming activities also provides a window into understanding the sophistication and the scale of contemporary reclamation projects. The researcher will study ecologists who have been tasked with the undertaking of restoring mangroves that were decimated in the wake of reclamation to examine how landscapes are created, managed, and in some cases, restored. Furthermore, the study will inquire into the subjectivities of residents to determine whether certain social groups have benefited more or incurred more losses from reclamation over others. The researcher will conduct participant observation, semi-structured interviews, oral histories, and archival fieldwork to collect relevant data. Findings from this research will provide insight for policy makers and urban planners by broadening the technological focus of reclamation to include the social, cultural, and environmental dimensions This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.