The Dream of ASEAN Connectivity: Imagining Infrastructure in Southeast Asia

Large-scale infrastructural development schemes are currently experiencing a worldwide political revival. Beyond establishing physical connections over distance, enhancing trade relations, and enabling service delivery, such schemes also play a central role in the construction of political entities. For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), infrastructure development is crucial for the advancement of regional connectivity. Its Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity includes large-scale projects such as the trans-ASEAN highway, trans-regional power grids, and a regional gas pipeline network. Linking Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualization on the production of space with recent literature on the role of infrastructure imaginaries, this paper explores how the region’s future is envisioned in the Southeast Asian dream of connectivity. The study primarily relies on a hermeneutic analysis of video releases that promote the Master Plan. It shows that – similar to other infrastructure projects – the connectivity dream is closely related to imaginaries of movement and modernity. However, as it is almost exclusively an urban vision, the connectivity agenda seems not only to interconnect and homogenize regional space but it may also enforce preexisting disconnections and so potentially lead to more fragmentation.

东盟连通之梦想：想象东南亚基础设施

关键词：设想，现代性，实体基础设施，空间的制造，区域主义，城市化。

大规模的基础设施发展规划目前正经历一场世界范围的政治复兴。这些规划除了建立远距离的物理性联系、提升贸易关系、以及促成服务递送外，还在政治实体的建设上扮演了中心角色。对于东南亚国家联盟（东盟）来说，基础设施建设对于推进区域的连通性至关重要。《东盟互联互通总体规划》包括了诸如跨东盟高速公路、跨区域电网以及一个区域性的天然气管道网络等大规模的项目。本论文将亨利·列菲弗尔（Henri Lefebvre）的空间制造概念与最近一些研究基础设施假想的作用的文献相联系，探讨了东南亚的连通梦想中是如何对该地区的未来进行构想的。本研究主要依靠对一些公开发行的推广《总体计划》的视频进行的解释学分析。它表明，跟其它基础设施项目相类似，东盟的互联互通之梦是与对流动和现代性的想象密切相关的。然而，由于它几乎是一个排他性的都市愿景，这个连通性议程看起来不仅会对区域性的空间进行互相连接并均质化，而且它还强化了先前已经存在的隔绝，并且因此可能潜在地导致更多的碎片化割裂。

Translated from English by Li Guo