Ghost projects are often overlooked, although they exist in all corners of the world, in the South as
well as in the North: mega-dams whose construction was delayed for decades, unfinished urban
developments, roads that exist only on maps, or abandoned airports. These unbuilt or incomplete
infrastructure projects are not just harmless ruins. Rather, they reveal the broken promises of
development. They can even have deadly consequences, as demonstrated by a recent corruption
scandal in the Philippines in November 2025, where hundreds of flood protection infrastructures
were found to be non-existent.
The twelve contributions to the special issue in Third World Quarterly on “Ghost Projects – Ruined Futures and the Unfulfilled Promises of Infrastructure Development” (Guest Editors: Detlef Müller-Mahn, Eric Kioko and Theo Aalders) provide evidence of the diversity of infrastructure projects that did not unfold as originally planned or promised. The case studies demonstrate that ghost projects are characterised by their inherent ambiguity. In their present-absence, they haunt the present through past imaginations and imagined futures, thus shaping the policies and practices of infrastructure development.
This special issue was produced in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Future Rural Africa: Future Making and Social-Ecological Transformation’. Further information can be found at www.futureruralafrica.de.
Studying ghost projects is highly relevant for understanding how futures are made, as it demonstrates how past visions and failed ambitions continue to ‘haunt’ infrastructure development in the present.
Detlef Müller-Mahn
Launch event
The guest editors of “Ghost Projects – Ruined Futures and the Unfulfilled Promises of Infrastructure Development” are delighted to invite you to the hybrid/online launch of the special issue of Third World Quarterly:
Date: 15 June
Time: 4:00–6:00 PM (CET)
Type: Hybrid / Online Event
More details coming soon via TWQ Linkedin and BlueSky.
About the Special Issue Guest Editors
Detlef Müller-Mahn is senior professor of development geography at the University of Bonn, Germany. His research focuses on the constitution of risk in relation to space (‘riskscapes’), the geographies of the future (www.futureruralafrica.de), and the political ecology of water and resource governance in Africa. He recently co-published an edited volume containing the findings of the Collaborative Research Centre “Future Rural Africa” under the title “African Futures in the Making” (available via open access from James Currey Publishers in February 2026).
Eric M. Kioko is a social and cultural anthropologist based at the
School of Environment at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. His research examines the dynamics of human-environment relations, environmental conflicts and peacebuilding.
Theo Aalders is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the STS Program at
Harvard Kennedy School in Boston. His research focuses on unbuilt and unfinished infrastructure projects, labour organising, infrastructure sabotage, as well as infrastructural ghosts and other horrors.
