Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The normative aspects of statemaking have important implications for the management
of natural resources, including water. Conservation-oriented nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs), which fight an uphill battle in China, often resort to strategic essentialism
to promote the idea that the minzu who reside in a particular area are “ecologically noble
savages” with a natural inclination toward responsible resource management if not explicit
conservation. In the Tibetan areas of northwest Yunnan, for example, conservation organ-
izations—both international, such as Conservation International, and domestic, such as the
Kawakharbo Society—promote this notion in order to limit hunting, logging, or the gather-
ing of nontimber forest products. These organizations cite the core principles of Buddhism,
which is deeply ingrained in Tibetan culture, invoking doctrinal themes such as karma and
the ideal of not harming sentient beings to suggest that the region's minority people are
natural conservationists (Yeh 2014).
The central government and other proponents of dam construction are no less adept
at using strategic essentialism, but their position, articulated in policy documents and
government-sponsored academic publications, is precisely the opposite. Government agen-
cies regularly depict the practices of highland minzu , including swidden agriculture and
the unregulated harvest of nontimber forest products such as mushrooms and herbs, as
harmful and exploitative of the environment. This depiction buttresses their overall argu-
ment, which is that the displacement and resettlement of communities for dam construc-
tion, however challenging and riven with conflict, will ultimately benefit the environment
by protecting it from exploitation at the hands of irrational users. Moreover, dam propon-
ents explicitly argue that hydropower development constitutes a much-needed poverty-al-
leviation strategy in an economically backward region that lacks jobs and other forms of
investment (He 2009).
THE MORAL ECONOMY
A second analytical concept that shapes the narrative of this topic is the idea of the moral
economy, which can be understood as “popular consensus … grounded upon a consistent
traditional viewofsocial normsandobligations, ofthepropereconomic functionsofsever-
al parties within the community” (Thompson 1971:79). The notion goes back to a seminal
work by historian E. P. Thompson entitled “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in
the 18th Century” (1971). Its central premise is that contemporary economic and political
interactions are shaped by norms with much deeper cultural and historical roots. Anthropo-
logists and their colleagues in related social science disciplines have long been interested in
the underlying concepts and motivations, both explicit and tacit, that drive people's beha-
vior and interactions with others. In the most fundamental sense, morality—from the Latin
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