What is Infraempire?

In places as far-flung as Addis Ababa and Astana, Dakar and Dushanbe, high-speed railways and shiny new city centres promise to boost economies and give a better life, as well as to boost a nation’s position in geopolitical hierarchies. Yet, in large parts of the world it is not one’s own state but rising economic powers with global ambitions such as China and Turkey who fund and build these new futures. These global ‘big brothers’ employ infrastructural largesse to showcase their own generosity and greatness, as well as to drive construction in their own capitals and to create ‘soft power’ empires. We call this infrastructural imperialism, or INFRAEMPIRE.

Read more

Keynote – Cyprus, 25-27 Sep, 2026

“Projects of the Century”
Empire, Epochs, and Infrastructure

In recent years, representatives of the Turkish government have used the epithet “project of the century” to refer to numerous megaprojects, from an undersea pipeline delivering fresh water to north Cyprus to the renewal of water and sewage pipelines in Yozgat or the mass building of housing in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquake—the latter labeled “the construction of the century.” The Turkish government, however, is not the first or only to use this label. In the 1970’s, it was the label given to a Soviet nuclear reactor project developed in Cuba. In the Philippines, the government has used the phrase for Manila’s new subway project. And perhaps most significantly today, it is also the moniker that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given to that country’s globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative.

This workshop asks what this epochal temporality, which gestures to the past while pointing towards the future, tells us about the relationship between infrastructures and empire.

Go to event

Keynote – Oslo, 2 September 2026

Luxury Lawfare: On Property, Time, and Speculative Geopolitics

by Prof. Rebecca Bryant

Every year, Forbes Magazine names its top five global choices for beachfront buys. Since 2021, they have given the number one slot to north Cyprus, a contested territory and unrecognised state where a multiplying number of contractors are building luxury highrises on disputed property. This presentation will examine a property boom and legal moves against it in what is often called a “frozen conflict”. Taking seriously this frosty metaphor, the paper will first sketch the overlapping temporalities of a sovereignty conflict where the choices of everyday life—where to shop, where to build a house, where to bury one’s dead—are inseparable from what people imagine as geopolitical futures. It will then look at property development as a way of reshaping the conflict and its potential resolution. The presentation will argue that construction is also a form of speculative geopolitics, where one not only speculates on property but also on the types of futures that property will bring.

 

Go to event

Latest