From anatomic analogies to arrhythmic timescapes: roads and development in northern Mongolia

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the intertwinement of the timescapes of roads and rural life within the context of infrastructural development in northern Mongolia’s Khövsgöl region. With reference to ethnographic fieldwork, it explores how visions of incorporating roads into state development conflict with the landscapes and temporalities these very roads cross. By looking at infrastructural promise formulated in phrases such as ‘development follows the road’, this paper investigates what happens at the end of the road that connects Khatgal, a touristic village, with the provincial centre Mörön and the capital Ulaanbaatar. In this context, anatomic analogies are questioned as a leitmotif for road construction. In concert with the notion of timescapes, anatomic analogies offer a useful tool to critically analyse the spatial and temporal entanglements of infrastructural development in Mongolia.