Choosing between energy and ecologies of health: Understanding developmentalism, state formation and local life worlds

Environmental crises, precipitated by a globally dominant model of developmentalism, have changed the lives of less visible communities in geographical peripheries. This study draws on our participant observation of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in general as a massive infrastructural development project and the Qadirabad coal power plant as one of many CPEC projects where developmentalism and local lives intersect with each other. We have presented evidence of how massive development projects bring about consequential but disguised social and environmental impacts on locals. The locals' narratives show that the Qadirabad project has brought about economic, agricultural and environmental degradation in their lives. They believe that the governments in Pakistan are conscious of foreign projects with adverse effects on the everyday lived realities of the people but willfully choose to ignore them.