Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

Abstract

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.

Dams and Damages. Conflicting Epistemological Frameworks and Interests Concerning “Compensation” for the Misicuni Project’s Socio-Environmental Impacts in Cochabamba, Bolivia

“…Large dams are often seen as fundamental for the provision of water and energy to an ever-growing part of the global population. Whereas from the 1950s until 1970s, such major hydraulic works were greatly embraced as positive developments, per se, awareness grew after the 1980s about the adverse consequences of dam construction and hydraulic control (see the overview in the introductory paper to this special issue, [6]). Human relocation, loss of sustainable livelihood, and damage to ecosystems prevail among the main negative outcomes mentioned.…”

“…Similar to all other compensation programs (see also the introduction paper [6]), the Misicuni project can be understood as a huge cultural and epistemological "purification endeavor". Particular information is given particular meaning in accordance with formal and (universalistic) expert notions, while inconvenient facts and knowledge, or peoples' territory and livelihood understandings, may be actively sidelined or overlooked [52,[65][66][67].…”

“…The fundamental challenge for affected communities and grassroots alliances who claim for repair and compensation, therefore, is to negotiate not just the issues and amounts to be compensated but also the very terms of "comparing" and "equalizing" the meaning and values of things, beings, relations, processes, and contexts. As the introduction paper states, "beyond the conflict over the material means of production and the socio-political/hydro-technological re-patterning of humans and non-humans in dam-affected territories, there is the struggle over the control of the means of knowledge production, as well as the battle over who controls societal power to determine what counts as 'normal', legitimate and valid knowledge" [6].…”

“…As the next sections' evidence of the Misicuni case manifest, though strongly influenced by unfair (but changing) power relations, the "knowledge of socionatures", their commensuration in the negotiation process, and the compensations that sprout thereof are importantly determined by interacting epistemologies and require affected communities' learning in the struggle. This transdisciplinary co-creation of knowledge involves both confrontation and mutuality among the water user, policy, and scientific communities (see also [6,48,69,70]).…”

“…In this article, we analyze the reasons why the highland communities feel unsatisfied with and deceived by the compensation process and results. We describe the different compensation measures taken and analyze the compensation process, showing how this, even in a context of well-intentioned state organizations, obliged the communities to constantly struggle for their rights and defend their knowledge frameworks related to water and dignified territorial livelihoods (see also the conceptual backgrounding in this special issues' introductory article [6]).…”