‘Roads’ is a five year ethnographic research project on infrastructure development in South Asia. The project, funded by the European Research Council, will provide the first ethnographic account of the culture of ‘road builders’, their knowledge practices, interrelations and motivations.
‘Roads’ is headed by Edward Simpson, Professor in Social Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. Srinivas Chokkakula is studying the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the Government of India’s flagship programme for building rural roads. Srinivas is conducting an institutional ethnography to understand the history of ideas and rationalities underlying the programme’s vision of “roads for inclusive rural development” in India.
