Dams and Development in

China: The Moral Economy of

Water and Power
EDS102
November 2017
Two concepts
• 1. Statemaking:
• Yunnan – periphery, minority populations
• Part of Zomia – vast highland area, northern part
• Backward, underdeveloped
• Hydropower for other parts of China, the east, coastal areas
• Nationalities question – characteristics of minority groups
• Contested nature of ‘development’ – hydropower dams
• Book is the details of how these debates take place, policies, contestations,
conflicts
• Those who have to live with dams very distant from those who plan them
Moral economy
Second concept
Are some commodities subject to other considerations other
than price?
Water related to core values
Different groups argue for water-resource-management
objectives
Government, hydropower corporations, NGOs, local
communities. Each of these groups (or parts of them) have values,
norms. They use these to get the policy outcomes they desire.
How do we understand power?
• Power is hydroelectric power – but how is it decided where to build
the dams, where to send the power, where to relocate people
• Rights and power of indigenous peoples?
• Consequences of dams for other nations along the watersheds of the
Nu River and the Lancang
• How are the ecological effects of dam building researched, taken into
account?
• Balancing environment and development