Giving a Dam in a Himalayan Outpost: An ethnographic portrait of infrastructure & development in Northern Pakistan

This research investigates the socio-political and cultural transformations surrounding the Suki Kinari Hydropower Project (SK Hydro) in the Kaghan Valley, Northern Pakistan. Positioned as a critical node in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this hydroelectric project embodies the geopolitical ambitions of infrastructural development while reshaping local notions of resources, citizenship, and modernity. Through ethnographic methods, the study examines how water—as a resource, symbol, and socio-political agent—mediates relationships between the state, transnational actors, and local communities. Development organizations, including the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Helvetas, feature in the broader ecosystem of actors shaping and contesting narratives of sustainability and welfare. By exploring how infrastructural projects serve as sites of contestation, collaboration, and co-option in the negotiation of contemporary social imaginaries, the research contributes to debates about the entanglements of infrastructure, resources, and social change.