Capitalizing on Compensation: Hydropower Resettlement and the Commodification and Decommodification of Nature–Society Relations in Southern Laos

TitleCapitalizing on Compensation: Hydropower Resettlement and the Commodification and Decommodification of Nature–Society Relations in Southern Laos
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsW. Green N, Baird IG
Secondary TitleAnnals of the American Association of Geographers
Volume106
Issue4
Pagination853-873
Key themesConversion-FoodSecurity, Dispossession-grabbing, FDI, Formalisation-titling
Abstract

Compensation programs for hydropower dam resettlement have far-reaching effects, including restructuring nature–society relations in support of capital accumulation. Although critical scholarship has shown the structural limitations of compensation programs for reducing poverty after resettlement, here we draw on the specific case of the Xepian-Xenamnoy hydroelectric dam project in the Xekong River Basin in southern Laos to explore the transformation of nature–society relations among the Heuny people. We argue that the compensation processes of valuation, abstraction, and privatization of property relations have contributed to the variegated commodification of land and other natural resources used by the Heuny. In contrast to arguments that capitalist expansion leads to ever increasing commodification, however, we demonstrate that compensation variously decommodifies other natural resources, such as certain nontimber forest products and wild fisheries, keeping other things, such as swidden fields and forest land, noncommodified. Moreover, these processes of variegated commodification are spatially variable, largely dependent on Heuny conceptions of space, thus affecting the commodification of land and other natural resources. Ultimately, by linking compensation to processes of (de)- commodification in its various forms, we suggest new ways in which capitalist social relations are being transformed and expanded through hydropower-induced resettlement. Furthermore, we call into question the ability of material compensation to restore previous livelihood and environmental conditions, as changes brought on by the compensation process itself have much deeper and profound implications when it comes to nature–society relations.
URLhttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/24694452.2016.1146570
Availability

Copyrighted journal article
Countries

Laos
Document Type

Journal Article

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

The article examines how a hydropower resettlement program leads to privatization through the commodification of nature. It provides the specific case of the Xepian-Xenamnoy hydroelectric dam project in the Xekong River Basin in southern Laos to explore the transformation of nature–society relations among the Heuny people. Besides, the authors explore the impacts of the resettlement program regarding local land tenure security and titling. It is also discusses the factors that have shaped local livelihoods and the attempts toward livelihood re-establishment in the resettlement program by the state and the project implementor.

Key Themes: 
  • Land zoning, planning, conversion and food security - The local government’s primary development plan for the Heuny was to convert them from subsistence-oriented swidden farmers to cash-crop coffee growers. Coffee production at the resettlement site failed, however, because the Heuny did not have access to adequate land, and coffee prices had dropped significantly on the world market. The Heuny were originally promised three hectares of land per household for farming, but when they arrived at the resettlement areas they discovered that most of the land was located on fallow farmland belonging to the original Jrou inhabitants. Moreover, after outside coffee companies were awarded concessions for land that overlapped with the areas promised to the Heuny, only 20 percent of the original land at the main resettlement site was available for their use.
  • Land dispossession/land grabbing - The Xepian Xenamnoy Power Company (PNPC) compensation program rewards the Heuny with only monetary or abstract replacements incommensurable with their cultural attachments to land and natural resources. It is in this sense that the discourse of compensation helps to normalize new forms of enclosure and dispossession.
  • Land rights recognition/formalization/titling/collective tenure - Prior to compensation for the dam, the Heuny did not have formal, state-recognized land titles. Previously, land tenure for the Heuny was based on a village customary common property system. The PNPC compensation program has formalized certain private property rights, however, by issuing land titles to people living at the old and new villages, which are required for the Heuny to receive compensation. The compensation process has thus created a new norm in land titling, one that effectively excludes titling much of Heuny land. Titles issued by PNPC for compensation were thus a principal means of formalizing private property relations at both the old and new villages.
Research basis: 

The research presented is based on a collaboration, and the second author has been researching and writing about the resettlement of the Heuny for nearly twenty years. During the summer of 2013, the first author conducted twenty-five qualitative interviews with Heuny leaders and community members at the main resettlement site of the Xepian–Xenamnoy dam located in Paksong District, Champassak Province. These interviews were carried out with the aid of two staff members from a Lao-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) who helped with translation and access to the resettlement site. The main consultants responsible for the Social and Environmental Impact Assessments for the Xepian–Xenamnoy dam were also interviewed. In July 2014 and July 2015, the second author conducted additional interviews with Heuny leaders. (Provided by Van Bawi Mang)