A relational approach to the technological transformation and continuity of underground aqueducts in Turpan, Xinjiang

Drawing on geochronology, remote sensing, and ethnography, we report the convoluted and non-linear history of one of the earliest dated shaft-and-gallery aqueducts in arid China that includes phases of initial construction (11th–13th centuries), redesign (14th–15th centuries), reactivation and extension (15th–17th centuries), and rerouting (19th century to the present). We argue that an innovation-centric approach to similar technologies — one that focuses on diffusion or autochthonous development — fails to account for the complex processes of use and maintenance evident in the aqueduct’s history. We propose an approach that attends to the shifting relations of humans and nonhumans which have co-produced convergent and divergent iterations of this irrigation technology. We argue that it is the very fragility of this technology — its propensity to break down — that has precipitated its rapid adaptations to changing environments. Treatment of fragility is selective: communities repair critical parts and allow others to deteriorate. We suggest that this uneven pattern of care allows frequent, targeted, and makeshift repairs organized through moral economies and collaborative labor practices characteristic of the Turpanian oases. Given the aqueduct’s 800-year history, we contribute to broader understandings of technological adaptability and infrastructure resilience in the face of ecological and socio-political uncertainties.