The spatialities of extended infrastructure landscapes: the case of Malaysia’s Melaka Gateway project

Abstract

This paper contributes to emerging research that seeks to understand how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is transforming the processes of urbanisation through more nuanced and situated analyses of its spatial, political-economic and discursive dimensions. In doing so, the paper focuses on the proposed Melaka Gateway project in Southwestern Malaysia, which is a privately financed initiative, slated to be the largest artificial island project in Southeast Asia, including a deep sea port, cruise ship terminal and eco-resorts off the UNESCO World Heritage city of Melaka. In line with the focus for this special issue, this paper examines the political, ecological, and socio-cultural transformations that such speculative infrastructure projects generate, even as they remain incomplete. Conceptually, the paper argues that a landscape political ecology approach can help to understand the conjoined political, ecological and discursive dimensions bound up with transnational infrastructure projects at multiple scales.

Keywords:

• Infrastructure
• urban political ecology
• Malaysia
• extended urbanisation
• landscape
• Belt and Road Initiative
• mega projects
• land reclamation

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of the paper were shared at the International Convention of Asia Scholars Workshop on ‘Ambivalent Infrastructures’ in 2019, and the Sheffield Urban Institute’s Workshop on Extended Infrastructure Landscapes in 2020, which both helped the formulation of the arguments presented. Thanks is also due to the editor, Vanesa Castán Broto, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high speed rail project was cancelled in 2020 as the two nations could ultimately not agree on financial and practical matters related to the project.

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to acknowledge the funding from the Landscape Research Group [Landscape Research Fund, 2020], which provided funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Creighton Connolly

Creighton Connolly (@Creighton88) is Assistant Professor in the School of Graduate Studies and Institute of Policy Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is an urban geographer and political ecologist by training, focusing on urban redevelopment and urban-environmental governance in Southeast Asia (primarily Malaysia and Singapore). Prior to his current appointment, Creighton was Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography at the University of Lincoln (2018-2021) and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He is editor of Post-Politics and Civil Society in Asian Cities, and author of Political Ecologies of Landscape: Governing Urban Transformations in Penang (Bristol University Press, 2022).