ABSTRACT
In Nepal, the imagined hydropower future pervades the uncertain present, giving shape to an indefinite economy of anticipation (Cross, 2015; Adams et al., 2009). This chapter examines the ways that the earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015 prompted a reconfiguration of this imagined future and its economy of anticipation, focusing on the increasing importance of ‘capitalist technologies of imagination’ (Bear, 2015a) used to encourage and coordinate practices of speculation. Focusing on the competing crisis narratives that emerged within the hydropower sector in the aftermath of the disaster, I describe the ways that different kinds of ‘resource affect’ (Weszkalnys, 2016) have helped shape both public discourse and official policies designed to secure the hydropower future. Ultimately, I argue that concerns about seismic risk in the Nepalese Himalaya have been eclipsed by the logics of finance capital, a resurgence of speculative practices, nationalist rhetoric focused on energy sovereignty, and renewed commitments to the dream of becoming a ‘hydropower nation’.
