Impounded rivers, compounded injustice: contesting the social impacts of hydraulic development in Laos

ABSTRACT

Laos has rapidly expanded its hydraulic infrastructure, creating profound environmental, economic and social ruptures. We combine frameworks of environmental justice with political ecology to examine the multiple expressions of water injustice evident in three hydropower project case studies involving resettlement. We find that livelihood restoration measures have not ameliorated, but reproduced underlying problems of poverty, inequity, exclusion and coercive expressions of social injustice. These are viewed as the structural outcomes of political choices. We conclude that there is little potential for a water justice paradigm in Laos without significant reforms to the national frameworks for water governance and human rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Hydraulic infrastructure development
• water injustice
• livelihoods
• dam-induced displacement
• Laos

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments in helping to improve the final draft of the paper for publication.

Contribution declaration

D.J.H.B. took the lead in designing the conceptual framework and drafting the article, in consultation with K.B. who helped build on the original draft. Both authors were involved in field data collection, analysis and interpretation in Laos, with the article relying more heavily on the primary data obtained by K.B. at two of the three case study sites. Both authors were equally involved in the finalization and critical revision of the article through the submission stages.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Research by the second author (K.B.) was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP 180101495: Rupture: Nature–Society Transformations in Mainland Southeast Asia). The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Research Council.