Weaponized Infrastructure constitutes the 17th issue of The Funambulist. It examines the use of infrastructure (railroad, highways, pipelines, canals, land reclamation, etc.) as a political weapon. “A construction project is worth a battalion” said French General and colonial administrator Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934), a key strategist of French colonialism in Vietnam, Madagascar, and Morocco. This issue’s articles describing the role of infrastructure in colonial projects in Canada (Deborah Cowen), Singapore (Charmaine Chua), Central Asia (Solveig Suess), Kurdistan (Begüm Adalet), and Colombia (Zannah Mæ Matson) illustrate such a strategy. Other contributions describe the geopolitics of narrowness materialized by the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aden, and the Strait of Hormuz in the maritime globalized capitalist project (Laleh Khalili), the story of Sovietic infrastructural remains in Southern Armenia (Rouzbeh Akhbari & Felix Kalmenson), the construction of a notion of “infrastructure of intimacy” in the context of the Israeli systematic destruction of Palestinian homes (Sabrien Amrov), and the project of rehabilitation of the toxified Euphrates River between Syria and Iraq (Malak Al-Faraj & Leyla Oz). The guest columns that open the issue are dedicated to the trauma of the Laos War in relation to motherhood (Nay Saysourinho), a critique of the tourism built on the idea of the Black diaspora’s return to Africa (Chanelle Adams), an update on the Tunisian youth’s political struggles (Rami Abdel Moula), and some reflections on the access to knowledge and pirate libraries (Dubravka Sekulic).

Editor-in-Chief: Léopold Lambert

Editorial assistant: Flora Hergon

Contributing copy editor: Noelle Geller

Contributing translator: Ferial Massoud

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CONTENTS ///

COVER | ISRAELI VIADUCT OF GILO IN OCCUPIED BETHLEHEM

David King (2007) 2 | QUIET LEGACIES: ON WAR, TRAUMA, AND MOTHERHOOD

Nay Saysourinho 4 | OUIDAH’S DOOR OF RETURN: DIASPORA TOURS ARE STILL TOURISM

Chanelle Adams 6 | THE TUNISIAN YOUTH HAS NOT YET GIVEN UP

Rami Abdel Moula 8 | ON KNOWLEDGE AND “STEALING”

Dubravka Sekulic — MAIN /// WEAPONIZED INFRASTRUCTURE

12 | INTRODUCTION

Léopold Lambert 14 | THE JURISDICTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE: CIRCULATION AND CANADIAN SETTLER COLONIALISM

Deborah Cowen 20 | “SUNNY ISLAND SET IN THE SEA”: SINGAPORE’S LAND RECLAMATION AS A COLONIAL PROJECT

Charmaine Chua 26 | A PASSAGE: REFLECTIONS ON INFRASTRUCTURES OF MOBILITY IN SOUTHERN ARMENIA

Rouzbeh Akhbari & Felix Kalmenson 32 | STREAMLINED SILK: ON OFFSHORING AND MATERIAL INTERFERENCE ALONG THE NEW SILK ROAD

Solveig Suess 38 | IT’S NOT YOURS IF YOU CAN’T GET THERE”: MOBILITY AND STATE-MAKING IN TURKEY

Begüm Adalet 42 | PALESTINIAN HOMES: INFRASTRUCTURES OF INTIMACY AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION

Sabrien Amrov 46 | THE POLITICS OF CANALS, GULFES, & STRAITS IN MARITIME FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION

Laleh Khalili 54 | WHEN THE HIGHWAY BECOMES A WEAPON: SITUATING INFRASTRUCTURE WITHIN COLOMBIAN COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE

Zannah Mæ Matson 58 | STUDENTS: A CHEMICAL CURRENT: REHABILITATION OF THE CONTAMINATED EUPHRATES RIVER IN SYRIA

Malak Al-Faraj & Leyla Oz

A QUICK LOOK INSIDE THE ISSUE ///