Generating power: debates on development around the Nepalese Arun-3 hydropower project

Rest, Matthäus

doi:10.1080/09584935.2011.646071

Cited by 19 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Since then, while civil society activism has relatively diminished in Nepal's hydropower sector (Rest 2012), strong regulation has remained in place to protect the interests of local populations affected by hydropower projects by securing them a share in overall benefits and granting them a right to information. Other global trends and standards (for example, social and environmental standards incorporated as part of development aid and corporate social responsibility becoming increasingly prevalent in business operations) have also shaped new discourses on benefit sharing.…”

Section: Hydropower Policy and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brokering justice: global indigenous rights and struggles over hydropower in Nepal

Sikor

Satyal

Dhungana³

et al. 2018

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

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This article explores the dynamics of brokerage at the intersection between the justice conceptions enshrined in global norms and the notions of justice asserted in specific socio-environmental struggles. Using the case of a small hydropower project in Nepal, we trace the attempts of an indigenous activist to enrol villagers in his campaign against the background of villagers' everyday negotiations with the hydropower company. The study shows how global norms, such as indigenous peoples' rights, may fail to gain traction on the ground or even become sources of injustice in particular contexts. RÉSUMÉ Cet article explore les négociations et les dynamiques d'intermédiation qui interviennent à l'intersection des conceptions de la justice inscrites dans les normes internationales et celles qui sont revendiquées dans des luttes socio-environnementales spécifiques. À partir du cas d'un petit projet hydroélectrique au Népal, nous décrivons comment un activiste autochtone a tenté de convaincre les villageois de se joindre à sa campagne, dans le contexte de négociations quotidiennes entre les villageois et l'entreprise hydroélectrique. L'étude montre que les normes internationales, comme les droits des peuples autochtones, risquent de ne pas être respectées sur le terrain ou même d'être des sources d'injustice dans certains contextes.

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Section: Hydropower Policy and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brokering justice: global indigenous rights and struggles over hydropower in Nepal

Sikor

Satyal

Dhungana³

et al. 2018

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The possible local sacrifices were used as an important basis for domestic and international opposition in the so-called anti-Arun III campaigns. Over time, a considerable number of Nepali people, including much of the Kathmandu urban middle class, became sympathetic to these campaigns given the background of perennial power shortages in the country [23]. The common resistance against these two project proposals was based not only on a mix of sympathetic reactions to compatriots and antagonistic feelings toward India, but also on the fear of export-caused scarcity-i.e., that power export to India would decrease the domestic power supply.…”

Section: Domestic Power Supplymentioning

confidence: 99%

Domestic Socioeconomic Barriers to Hydropower Trading: Evidence from Bhutan and Nepal

Ogino¹,

Nakayama

Sasaki

2019

Sustainability

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Bhutan has increased exports of surplus hydropower generation, whereas Nepal has been suffering from domestic power shortages. Why has Bhutan successfully promoted hydropower development and exports, while Nepal has failed to do so? This paper focuses on inherent development barriers that stem from domestic power supply, internal governance systems, and indigenous societal sensitivity. There are lessons to be learned from Bhutan’s practices that could be applied in Nepal. First, hydropower development can be severely affected by electricity scarcity that arises when power export is privileged over domestic power supply. Nepal has fallen into this negative loop, whereas Bhutan has overcome it through policy interventions that ensure visible links between power exports and domestic power consumption. Second, the sector reforms in the two countries contrast in terms of institutional, operational, and financial efficiency. Without fundamental reforms, Nepal’s sector-wide inefficiency fuels a vicious circle. Third, local resource conflicts and social complexities have made Nepal’s hydropower projects more complicated than Bhutan’s. In planning hydropower projects, it is crucial to pay careful attention to domestic stakeholders and local benefits. Planners and governments must ensure that projects are designed with extensive benefit sharing mechanisms, sustainable value chains, effective sector reforms, and sufficient societal conflict management.

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“…What can happen?" In 2014, after more than twenty years of delay, the road reached the dam site of the planned Arun-3 hydropower project (Rest 2012). In the meantime, the government had decided to extend the road all the way up to the Chinese border.…”

Section: Therementioning

confidence: 99%

Road animism

Rest

Rippa²

2019

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Self Cite

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In recent contributions to the emerging anthropology of infrastructure, the issue of agency often plays the role of the proverbial elephant in the room-an area that most scholars are reluctant to engage with. In this paper we highlight the implicit dichotomization between human and non-human that characterizes this body of literature. In so doing we approach the question of agency not as a subjective property emanating from a conscious self-what would be very much the way traditional anthropology has come to imagine animism. Rather, by turning such an understanding of agency on its head, we take the animacy of the in-between as the starting point from which life unfolds. According to Tim Ingold's work on the subject, this view is consistent with the cosmologies of people traditionally described as "animists." Yet unlike conventional understandings of the term, Ingold describes this ontology as an openness to a world in becoming. Here what brings things into existence is not an animating principle inscribed within them, but rather the potential of the field of relations in which they are embedded. We suggest that this analytical reversal can provide us with a novel framework for the analysis of infrastructures. Accordingly, we argue that roads' doings cannot be understood as active subjectivity or a function of their material resilience. Instead of connecting, roads should be understood as growing out of connections-as an "in-between" in which their doing is also their undergoing. We will make this argument through ethnographic cases from Pakistan, Nepal, China, Myanmar, and Austria.

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Generating power: debates on development around the Nepalese Arun-3 hydropower project

Cited by 19 publications

References 11 publications

Brokering justice: global indigenous rights and struggles over hydropower in Nepal

Brokering justice: global indigenous rights and struggles over hydropower in Nepal

Domestic Socioeconomic Barriers to Hydropower Trading: Evidence from Bhutan and Nepal

Road animism

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