How does the grassroots drive just transition? Evidence from an alteration of resettlement sites in China

Abstract

Dam-induced resettlement is a typical pattern of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR), which concludes involuntariness and leads to injustice practices. Although the justice of resettlement is studied in existing works, few of them notice that the selection of resettlement sites might be holistically an opportunity for just transition, and the performance of this process is not totally a government arrangement. To address this gap, this paper takes the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) as the theoretical framework, and adopts mixed methods to examine a second selection case of resettlement sites for the Wuxikou dam in Jiangxi Province, China. Based on grounded theory, five categories of resettlees' demands for resettlement sites, namely agricultural production (AP), non-agricultural production (NAP), material life (ML), social life (SL), and reception of natural ecology (RNE) are identified. The multiple conjunctural causation between these demands and resettlees' actions for changing initial resettlement sites is analyzed by Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Four intermediate solutions as well as the core and peripheral conditions are found. Apart from the bottom-up petitions, how the political environment and governmental administration enabled the resettlees' request for altering resettlement sites is illustrated. It is found that, although the government and resettlees with different interests and action logics, the same result is promoted under the national policies, viz, the implementation of changing resettlement sites, process justice and outcome justice are therein realized. Relative policy implications and outlooks on just resettlement practice are remarked.

A coupled and coordinated analysis in livelihoods of poverty alleviation migrants from a just transition perspective

“…This analytical framework is commonly applied to the resettlement of migrants due to large-scale development projects, such as the construction of dams, fisheries, agriculture and livestock projects (Scudder, 1962;Colson, 1971;Scudder and Colson, 1980;Colson and Scudder, 1988;Smith, 1994;Shi et al, 1996), as well as resettlement due to ecological degradation (Tony, 1993;Choy, 2004;Tilt et al, 2009;Shi et al, 2012Shi et al, , 2021Downing et al, 2021;Zaman et al, 2022) and can be applied in climate migration (de Sherbinin, 2011;Hossain, 2017;Liang et al, 2023) and government responsible poverty alleviation induced migration (Shi et al, 2019;Gou et al, 2022). In China livelihood studies focus on resettlement for poverty alleviation has only emerged in recent years.…”

“…In China livelihood studies focus on resettlement for poverty alleviation has only emerged in recent years. Unlike other places where resettlement is a byproduct of development projects, resettlement in China has become the primary means of poverty alleviation practices to achieve the goal of eradicating absolute poverty (Lo and Wang, 2018;Rogers et al, 2020;Gou et al, 2022;Chen et al, 2023). "The abilities to relocate, to settle down, and to prosper" (搬得出, 稳得住, 能致富) are the strategic targets of resettlement in China.…”