In the early nineteenth century, new infrastructural networks seemed to
promise social change. The railway, sometimes termed the ‘iron missionary’,
was invested with the power to create common interests, bring the classes
closer together without conflict, and deliver ‘modernity’ around the world,
particularly to countries colonised by Britain. These narratives sought to
naturalise infrastructural development as an agent of supposed ‘progress’, and political discourses from utopian socialism to liberalism adopted infrastructure as a means of spreading ‘civilization’, a concept that posited British agrarian capitalism as the ideal form of society. Through its associations with modernity and ‘progress’, infrastructure was mobilised as a justification for European colonial expansion and used as a cover for extraction.