Linkages of Suspended Infrastructure, Contestation, and Social-Environmental Unevenness: Colombia's Tolima Triangle Irrigation Megaproject

Suspended infrastructure of megaprojects marks Latin American landscapes. However, little research has attended to the social-environmental and political-ecological processes of such infrastructure. Moreover, while social conflict often accompanies infrastructure development, our research emphasizes citizen contestation of the suspension and dynamic spatial unevenness as a claim on the state to complete the project. This study examines Colombia's largest suspended irrigation infrastructure, the Tolima Triangle Irrigation District, through a combined political ecology and social-ecological systems framework. Results of integrated analysis show how the suspension drives differentiation in resource use and the social responses of individuals and communities to deepening disparities. In turn, public contestation of suspended infrastructure drives future prospects for the Tolima megaproject. Data is drawn from field research conducted for one year in 2018–2019. Mixed methods included semi-structured interviews, environmental assessment techniques, household surveys, and ethnographic participant observation. The research demonstrates that suspended infrastructure is neither a politically neutral, merely passive backdrop nor void of transformation but rather is comprised of contested processes rooted in the expanding social-environmental and political-ecological unevenness of development. Our findings contribute to the research on infrastructure suspension and development, and they are set within a broader body of scholarship on irrigation and political ecology of Latin American countries.