Award Abstract # 1917829
Doctoral Dissertation Research: Evaluating Risk and Uncertainty in Urban Infrastructural Planning

NSF Org: BCS
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
Recipient: PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
Initial Amendment Date: August 2, 2019
Latest Amendment Date: June 7, 2021
Award Number: 1917829
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Jeffrey Mantz
jmantz@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7783
BCS
 Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: August 15, 2019
End Date: July 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $10,503.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $10,503.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2019 = $10,503.00
History of Investigator:
  • Jean Comaroff (Principal Investigator)
    jeancomaroff@fas.harvard.edu
  • Courtney Wittekind (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Harvard University
1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE STE 3
CAMBRIDGE
MA  US  02138-5366
(617)495-5501
Sponsor Congressional District: 05
Primary Place of Performance: Harvard University
 BM
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): LN53LCFJFL45
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Cult Anthro DDRI
Primary Program Source: 01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 1390, 9179
Program Element Code(s): 760500
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

Large-scale infrastructural planning proposes that increased investment in a nation's basic systems and services might bring about a transformed future for its citizenry. Yet, previous research on governmental investment plans stresses that the futures promised by ambitious state-planning often remain out of reach, given that expansive projects are rarely completed on time or as according to plan. Thus, state planning might equally be a source of hope and a source of fear for people impacted by the protracted implementation processes inherent to complex plans. With proposals to invest in the rebuilding of national infrastructure growing in popularity, both in the United States and in industrializing nations across the globe, an understanding of the ultimate effects of investment in long-term, large-scale infrastructure planning is urgently needed. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology in scientific methods of rigorous data collection and analysis, the project would engage a wider audience in the scientific process, and broadly disseminate its findings to organizations invested in optimizing urban infrastructural planning.

Harvard University doctoral student Courtney T. Wittekind, advised by Dr. Jean Comaroff, will explore what strategies for investment, speculation, and planning are employed in the context of a large-scale infrastructural plan. Extended ethnographic research will be conducted in the city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), Myanmar's cultural and economic center. As the site for an impressive state-led plan that proposes to expand the city by over 20,000 acres, Yangon is an ideal location for the study of the advantages and disadvantages of large-scale state-led planning. The researcher will focus on the Yangon region's southwestern outskirts, including three townships targeted for redevelopment by this city expansion plan. There, she will ask two sets of questions about the effects of large-scale infrastructural planning. The first set asks about the relationship between everyday decisions made by those living in the Yangon region's southwest, and their perception of the city expansion plan, its progress, and future potential. The second set of questions contextualizes the first within Myanmar's ongoing democratic transition, asking how people's impressions of municipal and regional planning relate to their perceptions of national politics. The researcher will collect data through ethnographic research, including participant observation, household surveys, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, and archival analysis. The conclusions of this research will provide new insights into the relationships between planning occurring at the level of the individual, the municipality, and the nation, while also helping policymakers and civil society organizations better assess the promise of infrastructural investment, in light of its possible risks.

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.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

My Doctoral Dissertation research, funded by NSF, investigated emerging forms of inequality propelled by three global transformations: uneven urban development, the growth of speculative investment, and the rapid expansion of digital technologies. It did so through ethnographic study of Myanmar, where an ambitious plan to build a “new city” has converged with a celebrated democratic transition and, since February 2021, a resurgence of military-backed authoritarianism. My research recorded the catastrophic outcomes of everyday speculation on “new city” futures, seen across multiple fields: in Myanmar's approach to state-led planning under democracy, the vagaries of a volatile land market in a peri-urban residential development, and on unregulated social media sites, where residents, brokers, and investors exchanged highly sought-after land. More broadly, this funding supported the training of a graduate student in the humanistic social sciences and led to the completion of a doctoral dissertation entitled "Time to Change: Speculating on 'Transition' in Yangon's New City" and multiple forthcoming journal articles to be published in 2023. Through transnational research conducted in the US and Myanmar, this project additionally supported the strengthening of international research networks between these two countries, promoting avenues for cross-cultural research and exchange for future graduate students and faculty members. 


Last Modified: 09/01/2022
Modified by: Courtney T Wittekind

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