The Fantasy of the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project on the River Congo

Abstract

The Congo River is the deepest in the world and second-longest in Africa. Harnessing its full hydropower potential has been an ongoing development dream of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its more powerful regional allies. If completed, the Grand Inga complex near Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, will be the largest dam project in the world. Its eight separate dams (Inga 1–8) are envisioned to be “lighting up and powering Africa”. Opponents claim, however, that the rewards will be outsourced to corporate mining interests rather than meeting the needs of the local population, and that the project is flawed economically, socially and environmentally. The planned construction of the Inga dams and associated infrastructure has been stuck in limbo since it was mooted in the 1960s; a fantasy rather than a reality. This article attempts to analyse the rivalry underlying the Grand Inga scheme beyond the “pro” and “contra” reports. Embracing Lacanian psychoanalysis and triangulating multiple sources, we seek to unmask Grand Inga as a potent fantasy. Whilst exhibiting its purpose to serve as a screen to protect both proponents of and opponents to the dam from encountering their own self-deception, we conclude the scheme to be at its most powerful whilst the dream remains unfulfilled.

Unintended consequences of climate change mitigation for African river basins

“…At the same time, African rivers, lakes, and wetlands are a major biodiversity reserve providing a large variety of ecosystem services, ranging from fishing and flood-recession agriculture to habitats for wildlife, migratory birds, and endemic species of global conservation concern [21] . In many countries, however, the accelerated population growth and the fast-economic development are motivating large-scale infrastructure investments to meet increasing water, energy, and food demands [22,23,24] . These projects may constitute a major threat to natural ecosystems and local subsistence needs [25] .…”

Contested Knowledges: Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

“…"A range of powerful, transnationally allied groups and organizations have historically promoted the construction of these projects: politicians, bureaucrats, landed classes, and industrialists, multinational corporations, the World Bank, and other international organizations, as well as transnational professional associations of engineers and scientists" [7] (p. 3), which he calls an informal international "big dam regime". Underlying this regime are the deeply rooted values, norms and principles that, together, have promoted a development vision that was conceptualized nearly a century ago and which has been unleashed since the 1950s and 1960s (see, in this issue [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]). This vision equated development as the largescale, top-down, techno-centric pursuit of economic growth through the intensive exploitation of natural resources, that commonly disregards alternative knowledge systems, development trajectories and human suffering.…”

“…Hydropower and other mega-hydraulic projects have long been a deeply controversial issue, generating intense local, national and transnational disputes among proponents and opponents. Large-scale water infrastructure development has been shown to generate profound social and environmental impacts, the more so since the burdens and benefits are unevenly distributed among population groups and locations [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Commonly, mega-hydraulic projects aim to supply water and/or energy to industrial growth sectors, large-scale capitalist export agriculture, and the growing thirst of mega-cities and urban zones [18,19].…”

“…Throughout the world, the conquering of nature and the ordering of humans and ecology through large dams, reservoirs, tunnels and canals, to take water from the 'backward rural areas' to 'modern urban metropoles', has invoked utopian-inspired exaltations of modernity, civilization and progress [31,45,80]. Several papers in this special issue [9,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] detail how mega-hydraulic projects shape and materialize visions about technological and economic modernization, the mastery of territories and natural resources, and, as Teräväinen frames it, enhance the nation-state's depoliticized, techno-scientific knowledge base.…”

Reflections: Contested Epistemologies on Large Dams and Mega-Hydraulic Development

“…These dominant imaginaries, however, meet with counter-imaginaries of failed political promises, misleading information and secretive policymaking practices. In the similar vein, in another contribution to the special volume, Jeroen Warner and colleagues [9] use Lacanian psychoanalysis to describe the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project on the River Congo as a grand fantasy rather than a reality. Going beyond the "pro" and "contra" arguments that lay behind the competing imaginaries for the Hydroelectric Project, Warner and colleagues argue that the Grand Inga as a fantasy instils agency and legitimacy to various groups working both for and against it.…”