Infrastructure’s (Supra)Sacralizing Effects: Contesting Littoral Spaces of Fishing, Faith, and Futurity along Sri Lanka’s Western Coastline

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which infrastructural development can cause the sacred to become a source of political legitimacy and sacred authority to become a politically charged construct. For resource-dependent communities, the ecological damage caused by infrastructural development can cause ostensibly profane issues to be imbued with sacred meaning and value. With sacralization comes the expectation that figures of sacred authority will campaign for justice on behalf of the communities that they represent. When the authority evoked comes from outside the boundaries of institutionalized religion, however, processes of suprasacralization come into play. By exploring infrastructure’s (supra)sacralizing effects, I demonstrate how environmental ontologies can provide a competing basis for transcendence. In turn, this can reveal the politically progressive role of the sacred in eroding the legitimacy of institutionalized religion. I illustrate these ideas through an empirical analysis of the effects of the China-backed Port City Colombo project on Catholic fishing communities located along Sri Lanka’s western coastline. Drawing on ethnographic data, I explore how littoral spaces of fishing, faith, and futurity have become contested through the claiming of (supra)sacred places of power and justice.