Galen Murton

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at James Madison University

This paper conceptualizes 'presence' to analyse the volumetric growth of Chinese investment and development in Nepal from 2014 to 2021 in material, territorial and discursive terms. From physical experiences with earthquake disaster to the symbolic potency of Chinese infrastructure, this paper offers presence as a heuristic to evaluate China's risi...

Book review and forum on Lachlan Fleetwood's 'Science on the Roof of the World'

Post-colonial legacies of frontier making and border conflicts make the Himalayas a critical place for the study of territorial politics and the governance of space. Following recent calls to address how historical territorial structures shape contemporary experiences across the region, I aim to advance insights about the socio-cultural and politic...

In popular, scholarly, business and governmental conceptualisations, 'corridors' are identified as fundamental components of connectivity and central to the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, given how the BRI has challenged socio-spatial relations among participant states, elevating the corridor as the dominant mechanism framing th...

This chapter reviews the ethnographic and political histories of Tibet as well as contemporary academic literature on state-led development and social disempowerment in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Situating the analysis across the Tibetan Plateau regions of U-Tsang, Ngari, and the Northern Changtang grasslands, we use frameworks of critical ge...

Th is article explores the COVID-19 pandemic to extend the temporal horizon of (post-)disaster mobilities research. We are not only interested in the conspicuous disruption to mobilities wrought by disasters, nor the emergent modes of movement constituted in disasters' immediate aftermaths. Rather, with special reference to Nepal, this article atte...

This chapter reviews ethnographic and political histories of Tibet as well as contemporary academic literature on state-led development and social disempowerment in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Situating the analysis across the Tibetan Plateau regions of U-Tsang, Ngari, and the northern Changtang grasslands, we use frameworks of critical geopol...

Since 2009, and over the following decade, Kashgar Old City-an historical space of Uyghur culture and Islam and home to 220,000 residents-was largely demolished and rebuilt for tourists. Today, Kashgar and the Xin-jiang region are major conduits into Eurasia and have become critical nodes in China's national tourism development and Belt and Road In...

Chinese-facilitated development is transforming Nepal and building significant new foundations for larger bilateral state-making projects and the expansion of geopolitical linkages across the Himalayan region. As a landlocked state wedged between two giant neighbours – or the proverbial yam between two boulders, India and China – Nepal has long bee...

This edited collection explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social politics of road development and new mobilities in 21st-century Asia, i...

This edited collection explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social politics of road development and new mobilities in 21st-century Asia, i...

A variety of maps depict a usefully approximate but inexact network of roads, rails, sea lanes and other infrastructures to represent something called China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And yet, for a global programme that reflects and advances Beijing's new position as a leader of international development, BRI maps remain largely imprecise a...

This edited collection explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social politics of road development and new mobilities in 21st-century Asia, i...

This chapter examines rural road development in Nepal to understand how the purported benefijits of new transport mobilities in fact reinforce longstanding social hierarchies, create conditions for the consolidation of centralized elite power and capital accumulation, and reproduce terms of marginality and precarity for vulnerable populations in hig...

This chapter lays out the volume’s documentation of many of the uneven – and unexpected – experiences of mobility transformation as it unfolds as a developmental imperative across vast and complex landscapes of South Asia. Whether journeys become shorter, faster, more treacherous, cheaper, or more costly, questions about ownership, management, acce...

Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social poli...

Highways and Hierarchies: Ethnographies of Mobility from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean explores the contemporary proliferation of roads in South Asia and the Tibet-Himalaya region, showing how new infrastructures simultaneously create fresh connections and reinforce existing inequalities. Bringing together ethnographic studies on the social poli...

This chapter lays out the volume’s documentation of many of the uneven – and unexpected – experiences of mobility transformation as it unfolds as a developmental imperative across vast and complex landscapes of South Asia. Whether journeys become shorter, faster, more treacherous, cheaper, or more costly, questions about ownership, management, acce...

This chapter examines rural road development in Nepal to understand how the purported benefits of new transport mobilities in fact reinforce longstanding social hierarchies, create conditions for the consolidation of centralized elite power and capital accumulation, and reproduce terms of marginality and precarity for vulnerable populations in high...

When thinking about the ‘downstream effects of the BRI,’ Nepal comes quickly to mind. As both a hydrological basin of great rivers descending from Himalayan massifs and the Tibetan Plateau and a site of widespread infrastructure development significantly financed by Beijing, much moves from China into Nepal. Flows of water and synthetic garments; c...

In this edition, Samar SJB Rana interviews Galen Murton, and Austin Lord, on their article, ‘Trans-Himalayan power corridors: Infrastructural politics and China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal’, published in Political Geography in 2019.

Economic activity is central to development zones and represents a core dynamic from which a host of other relationships radiate outwards. While economic logics consistently motivate and produce the development of such zones, the resultant activities are always much more than economic. That is, the development of development zones also sets in moti...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

Development Zones in Asian Borderlands maps the nexus between global capital flows, national economic policies, infrastructural connectivity, migration, and aspirations for modernity in the borderlands of South and South-East Asia. In doing so, it demonstrates how these are transforming borderlands from remote, peripheral backyards to front-yards o...

This chapter reviews ethnographic and political histories of Tibet as well as contemporary academic literature on state-led development and social disempowerment in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. Situating the analysis across the Tibetan Plateau regions of U-Tsang, Ngari, and the northern Changtang grasslands, we use frameworks of critical geopol...

Knowing where, why and to what extent roads are being built between China and South Asia benefits Europe. Understanding contemporary dynamics between rising powers provides context on global politics and informs decision-making for EU investment and development interventions in Asia.

This paper examines China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Nepal to argue that infrastructure is a symbolic project of national development imaginaries, a process and practice of state formation, and a vector for the spatial operations of geopolitical power. Contextualized by a five-year development trajectory and accentuated with agreements fro...

In this article we review the most recent literature on infrastructure in the social sciences and show its relevance for the study of Highland Asia. We consider the spatial, scalar, and temporal aspects of construction and, in so doing, develop new conceptual tools to evaluate the social and political configurations of states and citizens in some p...

Economic activity is central to development zones and represents a core dynamic from which a host of other relationships radiate outwards. While economic logics consistently motivate and produce the development of such zones, the resultant activities are always much more than economic. That is, the development of development zones also sets in moti...

The Chinese government promotes the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a global strategy for regional integration and infrastructure investment. With a projected US $1 trillion commitment from Chinese financial institutions, and at least 138 countries participating, the BRI is attracting intense debate. Yet most analysis to date focuses on broad dri...

In this article we review the most recent literature on infrastructure in the social sciences and show its relevance for the study of Highland Asia. We consider the spatial, scalar, and temporal aspects of construction and, in so doing, develop new conceptual tools to evaluate the social and political configurations of states and citizens in some p...

Over the past two decades, several reviewers have elucidated the history and current status of geography as a discipline in Nepal (Panday 1998; Subedi and Poudel 2005; Koirala 2008). The most recent of these are Jagannath Adhikari (2010) and Bhim Prasad Subedi’s (2014) surveys, which together provide a thorough overview of the field. They highlight...

The sheer diversity and lively activity of Nepal geographies makes them difficult to ignore. From the continuous uplift of mountains and itinerant migration of river channels, to the feats of engineering on display in terraced fields and remarkable histories of migration and trade across mountain passes and floodplains, Nepal is a place where the “...

The Chinese government promotes the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a global strategy for regional integration and infrastructure investment. With a projected US$1 trillion commitment from Chinese financial institutions, and at least 138 countries participating, the BRI is attracting intense debate. Yet most analysis to date focuses on broad driv...

Across the Himalaya region, infrastructure development constitutes an array of material practices that produce space for both Nepali and Chinese state making efforts in historically roadless places. In northern Nepal, the production of large-scale transportation infrastructure has reached unprecedented levels, and Chinese interventions under the Be...

Over the past two decades, several reviewers have elucidated the history and current status of geography as a discipline in Nepal (Panday 1998; Subedi and Poudel, P. 2005; Koirala, H. 2008). The most recent of these are Jagannath Adhikari (2010) and Bhim Prasad Subedi’s (2014) surveys, which together provide a thorough overview of the field. They h...

This article examines the shifting dimensions of Chinese infrastructural aid in Nepal, focusing on the politics of anticipation and enunciation that shape Nepali perceptions of Chinese-facilitated development and negotiations concerning Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Drawing from ethnographic research focused on sites of ongoing and plan...

Across the Himalaya region, infrastructure development constitutes an array of material practices that produce space for both Nepali and Chinese state making efforts in historically roadless places. In northern Nepal, the production of large-scale transportation infrastructure has reached unprecedented levels, and Chinese interventions under the Be...

In this article we review the most recent literature on infrastructure in the social sciences and show its relevance for the study of Highland Asia. We consider the spatial, scalar, and temporal aspects of construction and, in so doing, develop new conceptual tools to evaluate the social and political configurations of states and citizens in some p...

Galen Murton invites readers to explore Roadsides collection no. 002 and to discover how the lenses of multiple artistic media illuminate the intricacies of infrastructural work and the layered politics of road development in aesthetically and conceptually innovative ways.

This second collection of Roadsides employs artistically rendered depictions of labor to show how infrastructures become political and material things through social relations of work. Aesthetically creative and methodologically experimental, the articles utilize photographs, paintings, cartoons, and videos to examine and reveal the impacts and exp...

This chapter examines the expansion of motor roads in Nepal’s northern borderland district of Mustang in order to understand how access and exclusion to new mobilities reinscribe social hierarchies in borderland spaces. Focusing the study on the shifting cultural practices of trans-Himalayan nyetsang social systems and an expanding tourism sector i...

In this article, we reflect on the multiple nature of our engagements in the wake of the 7.8m earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25th 2015. Specifically, we trace the events, experiences, decisions, positions, and processes that constituted our work with a post-earthquake volunteer initiative we helped to form, called Rasuwa Relief. Using the co...

In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of polit...

This dissertation examines infrastructure development between Nepal and China to argue that infrastructure is a symbol of national development imaginaries, a process and practice of state making, and a vector for the spatial operations of geopolitical power. Starting with the construction of a small trans-border road in Nepal’s northern district of...

Infrastructure developments across the trans-Himalaya have rapidly advanced Nepali and Chinese state presences across spaces where central governance has long been absent. This study examines how new border infrastructures of fences and roads shape commercial and cultural relationships between Mustang (Nepal) and Tibet and the ways in which these p...

This article looks at a trans-Himalayan borderland to see how new road development projects affect social and sovereign relationships across mountain landscapes between Chinese Tibet and Mustang, Nepal. Research asked about local experiences with new forms of motorized transport and popular consumption of Chinese-manufactured commodities to underst...

This article examines contemporary patterns of Chinese infrastructure development in Nepal’s Rasuwa District and the ways in which Nepali actors engage with Chinese investments to advance projects of state formation. Particularly in the wake of political volatility and natural disaster, Chinese interventions support the material and imaginative pro...

This photo essay illustrates and contrasts the infrastructure and operations of three international border posts between China and Nepal. Located at Zhangmu-Kodari, Kyirong-Rasuwa, and Likse-Neychung borders, these posts function as the only motorable China-Nepal border crossings and represent half of the six official, open borders recognized by Ka...

This report reviews four weeks of research on the politics of post-earthquake reconstruction, humanitarianism, and state building in Nepal. Although field research specifically examined the role and impacts of Chinese relief aid to Nepal, this report reviews and exposes the broader political constraints and reconstruction paralysis that currently t...

In recent years, infrastructure development has proliferated between China and South Asia. Particularly across the Trans-Himalaya interface of the Tibet Autonomous Region(TAR)of China and highland Nepal, historical trade routes are being reconstructed into modern roads. As border crossings reopen throughout the region, overland connections are sign...

As China and India build modern highways through the Tibet-Nepal borderlands, traditional livelihoods, land use patterns, and trade relations are rapidly changing for numerous highland communities across the Trans-Himalaya interface. In response to recently opened border crossings, various social and market networks have (re)emerged, transforming t...