Who pays the price for development? Evidence from selected videos

Abstract

Broadly speaking, development apparently intends to improve the livelihoods of the poor and marginalised people. However, this paper assesses whether this is always the case. Could development come at a price? If yes, who pays the price? This paper investigates this further based on cinematic representations of three non-fiction documentary videos: Drowned Out (2002), Dying for a Bargain (2013), and Black Gold (2006). Interpretive analyses of the storylines of these videos suggest that despite the promises of making a positive change for the better, development, often in practice, might affect the poorest through unfair wage and calls for ‘sacrifices’ for a so-called larger common good.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. He would like to also thank Dr Katharina Sarter and Dr Matthew David for their comments on an earlier draft of this article, and the Producers/Directors of the selected videos for granting copyright permissions to use some images from those videos.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] This is a broad category. Among others, it is comprised of films (including commercial popular films, and non-commercial documentaries), television shows, advertisements (e.g. commercial, and non-commercial [such as awareness campaign] advertisements), and various other promotional videos. Here, the term video has been adopted to represent this broad category of visual documents.

[2] Released in 2002 and directed by Franny Armstrong, this video tells the true story of one family’s (along with other villagers of Jalsindhi in central India) stand against the destruction of their land, homes, and culture because of a large dam building project. This video has been screened in a number of film festivals across the world and several television channels in the UK, Europe, USA and India.Drowned Out was short-listed for Best British Documentary in the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA), in 2005. For more details see: http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/drownedout.

[3] A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary for its Panorama programme. Panorama is a weekly investigative current affairs programme that was launched first in 1953 and claims to be the longest running public affairs television programme in the world (BBC 2005). Dying for a Bargain was aired on 27 September 2013 and according to the official website it ‘investigates how our [citizens of the Western countries] clothes – including those of some big high street brands – are really made. It finds evidence of shocking working conditions and an industry that still puts profit before workers’ safety. A BBC reporting team discovers people working 19-hour days, security guards who lock in the workers and factory owners who hide the truth from western retailers’ (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bvmyf).

[4] Directed by Nick Francis and Marc Francis (Speakit Films) Black Gold was released in 2006. This video is about the coffee farmers of Ethiopia who struggle to make a decent living from farming coffee despite being told that their coffee is gold while intermediaries and large multinational companies are making millions of dollars out of global coffee trade. According to the official website of this film, ‘coffee is a universal experience enjoyed by billions of people on a daily basis and is part of an industry worth over $80 billion a year. But, the people behind the product are in crisis with millions of growers fast becoming bankrupt. Nowhere more evident is this paradox than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee’. Black Gold has been screened in over 60 international film festivals across the world, and won the Best British Documentary prize by the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) in 2007. For more details see: https://blackgoldmovie.com/.

[5] According to Alexander (2008), researchers employ this framework to capture hidden meaning, ambiguity, and inter-connectivity among visual materials. She insists that rather than sticking to surface appearances only, interpretive analysis can capture richness of meaning and can give more weight to important cases. In this paper, this is done mainly through the interpretation of texts as delineated in the storylines of the selected videos.

[6] For Wiles et al. (2012), anonymity provides one of the ethical challenges when names are already used in videos selected for a research. It is, nonetheless, also an advantage that people appearing in those videos may have given their consents to the video production teams considering related issues of safety and other risks in expressing the views made in those documents.

[7] This needs to be clearly stated that although section-4 finds, as cinematographically represented in selected videos, it is the poor and marginalised people who often pay the prices for development projects, but this paper does not argue this to be a universal pattern or truth. This is further illustrated in the conclusion.

[8] As Becker (1998) argues that visualisation and images are at the heart of sociological enquiry, while Wagner (2006) asserts that one common objective of understanding a society is the production and refinement of an image that we are studying.

[9] Apart from these two categories, theme-based promotional videos and advertisements can also be used for development-related issues such as creating awareness, social mobilisation, fundraising, etc. (for more details see Shain 2013; Hickel 2014; Switzer 2013).

[10] For example, to assess impact on policy outcomes, Protess et al (1991, 247) identify three types of impact: deliberative (‘when policy makers hold formal discussions of policy problems and their solutions, such as legislative hearings or executive commissions’), individualistic (‘when policy makers apply sanctions against particular persons or entities, including prosecutions, firings, and demotions’), and substantive (‘regulatory, legislative, and/or administrative changes’).

[11] Throughout the paper, the quotations are included as appeared/told in the selected videos (using subtitles where these were not expressed in English). However, at times, clarifying notes have been included within […].

[12] The official narrative of Sardar Sarovar Dam is (as can be found in http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/project.aspx): the Project is one of the largest water resources project of India covering four major states – Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dam’s spillway discharging capacity (30.7 lakhs cusecs) is third highest in the world. With 1133 cumecs (40 000 cusecs) capacity at the head regulator, and 532 km length, the Narmada Main Canal would be the largest irrigation canal in the world. The dam will be the third highest concrete dam (163 metres) in India and in terms of the volume of concrete involved for gravity dams, this dam will be ranking as the second largest in the world with an aggregate volume of 6.82 million cu.m. Against this backdrop, the narrator in the video describes that once completed, the reservoir will be 200 km long and 245 villages will be submerged. The dam will then divert the Narmada River into a huge canal system which aims to redistribute water across Gujarat and Rajasthan. In contextualising further, it also states, with no water thousands of people have left Gujarat and more than 200 villages have been abandoned, the fields have turned into deserts. People who are still living in drought prone areas are dependent on government’s emergency water supply (14:00).

[13] The medicine-man’s wife (another main character of the video) also explains ‘our lives are being snatched away’ (4:35).

[14] In utter disbelief, but in a faint voice the medicine-man states that ‘it’s all ours by right … .we have not bought it from market … .it’s ours, we will not leave (11:47). As he went on to explain further later in the video ‘ … .our Gods have always lived here in things like trees and stones. The God of the whole region lived here. But now our Gods have been submerged … our Gods … they have all drowned’ (43:15–43: 53).

[15] Can be translated as Save the Narmada Movement.

[16] A World Bank consultant who was appointed to convene an evaluation study on the SSD project also echoed this. He suggests that the project started without knowing clearly the basic fact what would be the human consequences (37:05). There was not enough space and option for rehabilitating people. There were far more people than anticipated … this was a very big finding [of the World Bank study] and an alarming one (37: 30).

[17] She illustrates further that she was told to ‘go away, you have got the money’ (49:22) when she went to the project office as her money ran out and sought help. This highlights the lack of apathy for the people who sacrificed for larger common good by leaving their lands, habitat, neighbour, and friends for this mega development project.

[18] He refers to living in the slum, pulling cycle-rickshaws and working as day-labourer at the same time. He insists that ‘we have always been farmers; apart from that we had no skills’ (50:36). Now we are city dwellers and we do not like it – I have always belonged to village’ (51:26).

[19] Compared to their previous life where they were dependent on land and nature, the new settlers quickly identify how things work in their new life: ‘everything depends on money here’. One has to use and buy fertilisers for crops and food for cattle something they did not have to think about before (19:01–19:30). They suspect this will be expensive and farming in provided land will not be a good way for survival.

[20] While small-scale workplace accidents are not quite unusual, large-scale accidents like Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashions show the level of risks RMG workers in Bangladesh have to take to earn a living. The term ‘high profile’ is being used as these incidents caught intense attention both in national (Bangladeshi) and global media.

[21] Described as the worst industrial accident in Bangladesh (Guardian, 2015), Rana Plaza was an eight storied building including multiple RMG factories. It was collapsed in April 2013 and it is estimated that more than 1100 people, mainly RMG workers, were dead and many more (about 2500) injured (Akhter 2016; Motlagh and Saha 2014).

[22] Tazreen Fashions were a garment factory in Bangladesh making clothes for Western high street outlets such as Walmart and CAN. Tazreen experienced one of the deadliest accidents in Bangladesh RMG factories where a fire in 2012 caused the deaths of more than 100 workers and many with serious injuries (Yasmin 2014; Skorpen Claeson 2015).

[23] The video reveals how the RMG factories keep two separate records for time-keeping. One for the buyers and other checks – where it always shows that workers left the factory at 5 pm. The other one is for internal use to track the workers’ overtime (11:12). This was reconfirmed by a spokesperson of Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, ‘the factory owners keep two different books so they show one to the buyer and the other to the worker. The retailers’ so called audit really doesn’t work’ (11:58).

[24] A large export-oriented RMG factory in Bangladesh.

[25] Based in London, UK, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) tells about the organisation as ‘a leading alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe. Our vision is a world where all workers are free from exploitation and discrimination, and enjoy conditions of freedom, security and equity’. Further information can be obtained from http://www.ethicaltrade.org/about-eti.

[26] The US$ estimate shown here are taken from the actual video.

[27] The video shows a worker there gets 4 Birr and 50 cents which is less than half of $1 a day for working 8 hours (22.38).

[28] From farmers to local buyers to regional/international suppliers to roasters to cafes to the customer.

[29] In section-3, only the time was mentioned as evidence was presented there in order. As in this section, analysis will involve cross-referencing, so initials of the videos are also provided for ease of reading.

[30] It is often reported in the national newspapers (see Mahmud 2015; Parvez 2014) that in peak seasons when the supply is plenty, small and marginal farmers sell 40 KGs of rice for 1 kg of fish (such as Hilsha) or beef.

[31] The Bank kick-started the project in the 1980s by loaning the Indian Government 450 million dollars (DO, 34:18).

[32] One NBA leader insists that they asked 36 questions to the World Bank officials (in 1987) and had no answers. This made them to think that not only the Bank did not know about the complexity of socio-cultural aspect of the population in the Narmada valley, but also the Bank did not know the economics of the [SSD] project (34:42). Campaigners from the NBA opted for various forms of protest including a hunger-strike prompting the World Bank to agree to carry out an independent review of Sardar Sarovar project. Nine months after the review team published its report, the Bank withdrew from the project. The Indian government ignored all the criticism, raised money internally and continued construction on the dam.

[33] He further elaborates that the government promise clean water for the people who do not have water, they promise irrigation to people who are drought vulnerable – things that all human being long for when they don’t have them. When in fact, they will not deliver these things and when in power no one will deliver these things either but do not say so, a hideous evil is at work (DO, 63: 30).

[34] Winner of Man Booker Prize (1997), and Sydney Peace Prize (2004).

[35] It is envisaged in BG and DFB that the farmers/workers are not getting fair prices to make a decent living and switching towards the farming of a narcotic plant called Chat for financial reasons. Their malnourished children are not being treated in local health clinics, they are dying in great numbers and getting burnt alive in their efforts to make clothes for Western customers.

[36] People like the Cooperative Supervisor in BG (as one example demonstrated in selected videos) seen visiting Western countries to gain first-hand knowledge on how much one cup/tin of coffee is sold in the coffee shops or retail stores.

[37] Three judges of Indian Supreme Court delivered a split verdict. One of them asked to stop the dam activities until detailed impact assessment while two others judges outvoted this decision and permitting the dam to be built up to its full height on condition that resettlement is completed before each 5 metres increase (DO, 67:59).

[38] For Roy, most of the times the decision, from who to take away goes against the poor, and the decision to whom the advantage will be given go to the rich. Roy also challenges the Minister for Narmada Irrigation in the Second World Water Forum, when the Minister claimed that India has already invested a huge amount of money (8.5 billion dollars) and cannot retreat from building the dam. Roy tells the Minister, ‘stop being hypocritical and just say look this many people need to be dumped for the good of that many people. And we [the politicians] will decide who this people are’ (DO, 28: 22). When the Minister accused her making absolutely false allegations, she further asserts ‘some people asked me why I came here. I said I just came here to see what power smells like. Let me tell you it stinks, stinks’ (ibid, 28:29).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Palash Kamruzzaman

Palash Kamruzzaman is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of South Wales, UK. He is the author of Poverty Reduction Strategies in Bangladesh – Rethinking Participation in Policy-making (2014), Dollarisation of Poverty – Rethinking Poverty beyond 2015 (2015), and Editor of Civil Society in the Global South (2019). He has also published in the areas of approaches to development, participation in policy-making, aid-ethnographies, civil society and extreme poverty. Email: [email protected]