Roads that Separate: Sino-Mongolian Relations in the Inner Asian Desert

TY - JOUR

T1 - Roads that Separate

T2 - Sino-Mongolian Relations in the Inner Asian Desert

AU - Pedersen, Morten Axel

AU - Bunkenborg, Mikkel

PY - 2012/11

Y1 - 2012/11

N2 - We usually think of roads as tools of social and material connection which serve to enchain places, things and people that have not before been as directly, or intensely, linked up. Yet, in the sparsely populated grasslands and deserts of the Sino-Mongolian border zone, it is equally much the other way around. Rather than facilitating more interaction between local Mongolians and the growing number of Chinese employed in mining and oil companies, the many roads that are now being built or upgraded to transport natural resources, commodities and labour power between Mongolia and China serve to curb both the quantity and the quality of interactions taking place between Mongolians and Chinese. Thus, roads here act as technologies of distantiation, which ensure that the two sides become less connected as time passes.

AB - We usually think of roads as tools of social and material connection which serve to enchain places, things and people that have not before been as directly, or intensely, linked up. Yet, in the sparsely populated grasslands and deserts of the Sino-Mongolian border zone, it is equally much the other way around. Rather than facilitating more interaction between local Mongolians and the growing number of Chinese employed in mining and oil companies, the many roads that are now being built or upgraded to transport natural resources, commodities and labour power between Mongolia and China serve to curb both the quantity and the quality of interactions taking place between Mongolians and Chinese. Thus, roads here act as technologies of distantiation, which ensure that the two sides become less connected as time passes.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1745-0101

VL - 7

SP - 555

EP - 569

JO - Mobilities

JF - Mobilities

IS - 4

ER -