Infrastructures of Ocean/Knowledge: The Port of Hambantota and Ocean University, Sri Lanka 2000-2020

• In Event: Frameworks for Speculation: Science, Economy, and the Uncertain Environment

Abstract

The two largest Chinese-investment mega-projects in the Indian Ocean to date have been the deep-water ports of Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and Gwadar, Pakistan, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The construction of these two mega-ports, as well as what capacities they could serve in the future (including for oil refineries or military operations) have triggered a flurry of diplomatic anxiety on the part of India, as well as its own foreign policy monikers such as the US-think-tank-coined moniker of the “String of Pearls” to refer to new Chinese geo-political interests in the Indian Ocean. In this paper I bring the historic literature on port cities, and oceanic infrastructures together with the history of science through a study of a new Chinese-funded University, Ocean University, opened in Sri Lanka in 2014. Ocean University has as its remit a focus on economic and marine fisheries and oceanographic research, with a key emphasis on “risks” posed to the ocean in the ensuing decades. Its courses, training and research centers bear no formal traces of any geo-political slant. In this paper I ask what this twenty-first century instantiation of the relationship between science and empire at sea looks like through a consideration of technical training, marine biological research, and investment in Ocean University.

Author

• Tamara Fernando, Stony Brook University