Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The twentieth century and the sliver of the twenty-first that we have seen so far have
been marked by the migration of hundreds of millions of people. In many cases, their
movement has involved at least some volition and self-determination: people move to
avoid environmental disasters, to seek greater political freedom, or to maximize their fam-
ily's economic chances. But people also move because they are forced or otherwise co-
erced by factors beyond their control. Resettlement to make way for development pro-
jects—infrastructural projects such as hydropower facilities, natural-resource extraction,
tourism development, conservation areas, and urban expansion requiring the annexation of
rural land—has displaced many millions of people against their will. These “people in the
way,” as the anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith (2010) calls them, are often nameless
and faceless, collectively adding up to a number that is probably impossible to calculate
with any precision. The WCD (2000) can only say that between 40 million and 80 million
peoplearoundtheworldhavebeendisplaced bydams,afairlywidewindowofuncertainty.
For people who undergo involuntary displacement and resettlement, who experience the
uprooting of their families and communities, such struggles often represent “disasters of
development” (Oliver-Smith 2010:1).
In 2004, Xinhua News Agency, the CCP's official media service, released a short report
based on research conducted by the MWR, which concluded that the nation's displaced
population related to dam construction totaled at least 15 million people, ranking it first in
the world (Yao 2004). The tone of the report is strangely ambivalent. On the one hand, it
cites studies by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank that conclude that most
of China's dam migrants relocated willingly, a claim that seems dubious given the poor
standards of informed consent and public participation in such projects, particularly before
the 1990s. On the other hand, the report provides a frank assessment of the myriad short-
comings of past and present resettlement policies—poor planning, insufficient levels of
compensation, and the selection of unsuitable relocation sites—and alludes to broad public
dissatisfaction and even social unrest related to dam-induced displacement.
The vast majority of studies on the social impacts of displacement and resettlement con-
cludethatlivesandlivelihoodsareneverthesameafterward.In
TheFutureofLargeDams
,
Thayer Scudder (2005), an anthropologist who participated in the WCD's comprehensive
review process, concluded after perhaps the most extensive global review of large-scale
dam development ever undertaken that in 80 percent of cases—from Africa to Latin Amer-
ica to Southeast Asia—resettled people experience a marked decline in their standard of
living.ButunderstandingtheeffectsofresettlementonruralcommunitiesinChinarequires
a close look at the details of policy governing resettlement for hydropower projects and at
the ways individuals participate in the decision-making process. It also requires an exam-
ination of the changing nature of land-use rights in contemporary China, one of the most
problematic and conflict-riven issues of the reform era. The story involves social scientists
who work in the growing field of social impact assessment and seek to improve current
