ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the work of two recent case studies concerned with the implementation of mega-infrastructure projects (MIPs) in order to compare the consequences they bring to local communities faced with expropriation and displacement. It examines the large-scale impacts of MIPs on the agrarian sector of the Belt and Road Initiative in Tibet and development corridors in Tanzania, by exploring approaches of new frontier, anti-politics machine processes and New Institutional Political Ecology, and focussing on commons grabbing for analysis. The two cases illustrate the complexity and seemingly insurmountable obstacles presented to minority groups that are affected at the local level. Therefore, this chapter examines the promises that accompany such MIPs under the idea of ‘enchantment of infrastructure’ and portrays how they lead to commons grabbing processes. Local groups confronted with large MIPs as ‘progress machines’ show diverse forms of resistance and struggle for resilience. The strategies and views of the actors involved vary and cannot generally be described in terms of homogenous interest groups. Hereby, in the arena where we could expect ‘disenchantment’ in the sense of an awakening, it remains to be seen whether the spell can be broken in the form of a politics machine from below.
