Beyond “Socially Constructed” Disasters: Re-politicizing the Debate on Large Dams through a Political Ecology of Risk

Huber, Amelie; Gorostiza, Santiago; Kotsila, Panagiota; Beltrán, María Jesús Sánchez; Armiero, Marco

doi:10.1080/10455752.2016.1225222

Cited by 38 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The production of ignorance is an issue that is fundamentally neglected in studies of mega-hydraulic projects and large-scale territorial transformations (see also [101]. Proctor and Schiebinger [102] argue that a great deal of attention has been given to epistemology-the study of how we know.…”

Section: 'Dehumanizing' Rationality and Manufactured Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

Boelens

Shah

Bruins

2019

Water

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Locally and globally, mega-hydraulic projects have become deeply controversial. Recently, despite widespread critique, they have regained a new impetus worldwide. The development and operation of large dams and mega-hydraulic infrastructure projects are manifestations of contested knowledge regimes. In this special issue we present, analyze and critically engage with situations where multiple knowledge regimes interact and conflict with each other, and where different grounds for claiming the truth are used to construct hydrosocial realities. In this introductory paper, we outline the conceptual groundwork. We discuss ‘the dark legend of UnGovernance’ as an epistemological mainstay underlying the mega-hydraulic knowledge regimes, involving a deep, often subconscious, neglect of the multiplicity of hydrosocial territories and water cultures. Accordingly, modernist epistemic regimes tend to subjugate other knowledge systems and dichotomize ‘civilized Self’ versus ‘backward Other’; they depend upon depersonalized planning models that manufacture ignorance. Romanticizing and reifying the ‘othered’ hydrosocial territories and vernacular/indigenous knowledge, however, may pose a serious danger to dam-affected communities. Instead, we show how multiple forms of power challenge mega-hydraulic rationality thereby repoliticizing large dam regimes. This happens often through complex, multi-actor, multi-scalar coalitions that make that knowledge is co-created in informal arenas and battlefields.

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Section: 'Dehumanizing' Rationality and Manufactured Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

Boelens

Shah

Bruins

2019

Water

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“…During the dictatorship of Franco protests were not allowed, so the affected people who lost their land, homes and livelihoods could do nothing but accept the impoverished housing and living in resettlement villages (see e.g. Huber et al 2017). After the restauration of democracy in 1975, the hydraulic mission of the Spanish government continued (Genovés et al 2008).…”

Section: The Anti-dam Movement In Spainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental justice movements in globalising networks: a critical discussion on social resistance against large dams

Shah

Vos

Veldwisch

et al. 2019

The Journal of Peasant Studies

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We examine the social resistance against large dams as environmental justice movements in four case studies-the Sardar Sarovar Project from India, the Hidrosogamoso from Colombia, the 'new water culture' movement in Spain, and the Lesotho Highlands Project from Lesotho-with diverse social, political and environmental contexts. We discuss three broad issues. First, the nature of the involvement of civil society and metropolitan intelligentsia in leadership roles. Second, how cross-class and multi-sectoral alliances have been forged between the local and the global. And third, how the notion of environmental justice in relation to social justice is adopted in these movements.

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“…Historical research in political ecology, for example, has brought to light the key role of grassroots antinuclear mobilisation in southern Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, overlooked by previous research because it did not correspond to the postmaterialist model of 'new social movements' postulated by Political Science (Barca and Delicado 2016). Research has also given a critical account of the high-risk politics of hydropower in Italy and Spain, as driven by powerful economic interests with disregard for the vernacular knowledge and safety of local communities (Huber et al 2016).…”

Section: Towards Energy Sufficiency: Beyond Economic Growth and Ecolomentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing energy policy. Lessons on the integration of social sciences and humanities

Ptashnyk¹

2019

Journal of Contemporary European Studies

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Beyond “Socially Constructed” Disasters: Re-politicizing the Debate on Large Dams through a Political Ecology of Risk

Cited by 38 publications

References 31 publications

Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

Environmental justice movements in globalising networks: a critical discussion on social resistance against large dams

Advancing energy policy. Lessons on the integration of social sciences and humanities

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