PrintRequired Reading for the week includes:
Bakker, K. (1999). The politics of hydropower: developing the Mekong. Political Geography, 18, 209–232.
Bakker analyzes the two dominant discourses around hydropower development of the Mekong River Basin. The two discourse are “water as a scarce resource; and capitalism as a neutral force for growth, development and integration in the post-Cold War era” (p. 210). Through an analysis of the discourses, Bakker aims to highlight the real material effects (impact of fisheries, inequitable distribution of benefits between countries, etc.) that these discourses obscure. Bakker argues that the scarcity of water discourse rests on the idea that water is scarce and inefficiently utilized, and that this global discourse plays out even in areas where water is available in abundance. This framing of water tends to devalue the local uses and economies dependent on water, presents them as the problem to which efficient water management through hydropower development are the “solution”. The second discourse of neutral capital comes from the idea of private capital promoting efficiency in water management. However, this tends to hide the “lack of accountability, absence of rigorous environmental and social impact studies, and conflict of interest apparent in the close links between ‘tied aid’ [from development banks etc.] and private investment” (p. 225).
"Hydrodevelopment at any scale will operate primarily, and most importantly, as a means of commodification, and simultaneously as a means of extending state control into predominantly rural areas (Dodds, 1994; Escobar, 1996). This progressive capitalisation, mediated by the state, will increase the likelihood that revenue flows of hydrodevelopment will, once captured, be redirected away from local people and local use."
"Without state-sanctioned property rights, for example, highland peoples, in many cases ethnic minorities, living in the areas affected by dam-building are without recourse if hydropower developers refuse their claims for compensation (Ryder, 1996)."
"This supposedly apolitical rescripting of boundaries is, however, a profoundly political move, not least because of the inequitable distribution of costs and benefits of resource exploitation between upstream and downstream riparian nations, and between urban and rural communities."
In reading this piece, consider how discourses around development also privilege large infrastructure projects like dams. How do these discourses affect our ability to think of alternatives to large dams?
Randell, H., & Curley, A. (2023). Dams and tribal land loss in the United States. Environmental Research Letters, 18(9), 094001
This paper provides insight into the magnitude of impact damns installed primarily for hydroelectric energy generation on Indigenous land loss in the US. The paper used a geospatial analysis of dams and federal Indian reservation boundaries to map and quantifying the amount of tribal land flooded by dam reservoirs. The authors call for dam removal or tribal ownership as a form of restitutions for the negative effects on tribal communities.
Jerez, B., Garcés, I., & Torres, R. (2021). Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility. Political Geography, 87, 102382.
Energy transitions in the Global North produces green extractivisms in the Global South. Lithium extractivism carries the potential for major injustices in terms of water access and marginalization of minoritized communities. At the same time, water depletion of the Salar de Atacama has increased protests and social mobilizations for water justice.
“The results demonstrate how the linkages and feedback between global and local dynamics of lithium mining in the Salar de Atacama constitute a form of green extractivism that further replicates the historical inequalities between the Northern and Southern hemispheres and especially affects the indigenous Andean territories and the water ecosystems in the Global South. We call this phenomenon the colonial shadow of green electromobility.”
In reading this piece, consider our reading on social-ecological systems and the ways processes at different scales and in very different locations are internreated.
NOTE: Links to the readings are located in the Week 9 module in Canvas.