The Cost of Development: Managerialism and Mahaweli in the Age of CKDu

Abstract

This thesis opens by presenting the curious epidemic of chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) which has affected primarily poor agricultural workers in certain areas of the global south for decades, yet remains largely undiscussed in the global media. In Sri Lanka, CKDu is primarily concentrated in the North Central province, the site of a massive, decades-long agricultural development project known as the Mahaweli Development Project. Given this geographic overlap, this thesis asks what insight into CKDu, if any, can be provided by a closer look at the development project.

The Mahaweli project is an immense undertaking which involves the construction of large scale irrigation infrastructure to create irrigated agricultural settlements in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone, with the stated goals of improving the national economy and reducing poverty by resettling poor and landless Sri Lankans in the project area and providing them with farmland. The Mahaweli project is comprised of a series of individually financed development projects, many of which relied on funding from the World Bank.

This thesis is a case study concerning international development in Sri Lanka. Using within case analysis, this thesis analyzes reports produced by the World Bank in selected development projects within the overarching Mahaweli development initiative to test two complementary theories: global managerialism and necrocapitalism. Global managerialism is an iteration of managerialism, a theory which posits that managerialism is an ideology which seeks to overtake every realm of human society and run it as a corporation would be run. Managerialism is administered by an elite class of managers who profit off of the expansion of the managerialist system. In a global managerialist system, these elite actors include enormous international financial institutions such as the World Bank. Necrocapitalism is a related theory which posits that colossal and powerful actors, such as wealthy nations and international financial institutions, accumulate their scores of wealth and power through the death and dispossession of people in other nations. Together, these theories provide a lens through which to interpret international development.

This thesis tests the applicability of these two theories to the Mahaweli project. The findings suggest that the Mahaweli Development Project has global managerialist and necrocapitalist underpinnings. While this thesis does not conclude that the Mahaweli project caused widespread CKDu in Sri Lanka, the findings suggest that the Mahaweli project created the circumstances under which the CKDu epidemic could, and did, manifest.