Forced resettlement and the survival systems of the urban poor

Abstract

The forced resettlement of populations in association with the construction of dams and other major public works constitutes a crisis that generates what Scudder (1973) and others call a "multi-dimensional stress of relocation." The intensity, characteristics, and manifestations of this stress depend on many variables, some of which are universal while others are specific to the socio? economic and cultural milieu in which the displacement takes place. Studies carried out during recent decades have greatly contributed to delineating the general features of compulsory relocations as social processes, but the vast majority of these studies were based on rural populations. Thus, Scudder (1981) treats these processes within the general framework of rural development schemes and the colonization of new lands. Although one could place urban relocations caused by dams and reservoirs in the context of urban renewal or slums and squatter settlement eradication schemes, their peculiarities (Bartolome 1983) are so many and great that they deserve special consideration. Further? more, studies of these kinds of processes can shed light upon one of the most critical areas of social theory; the relations between individual behavior and social forms (including cultural norms) under conditions of very rapid social change (Fahim I983:VII). This article describes the early consequences brought about by the impending forced resettlement of more than 20,000 persons in the city of Posadas, Argentina, because of the Yacyreta Hydroelectric Project. It focuses on the survival systems and adaptive strategies of the urban poor, who constitute the bulk of those affected by the future reservoir. This population's adaptive strategies are predominantly aimed at achieving some steadiness in the control of resources obtained from a wide range of sources and thereby reduce the uncertainties which impair the functioning of their survival systems. My main argument here is that the very prospect of displacement, first surfacing ten years ago, has caused a noticeable decrease in the output of these survival systems and in the efficiency of adaptive strategies. The announcements of future displace? ment created great uncertainty and gave rise to disorganizing forces not controllable through traditional coping mechanisms. The result has been a deterioration in the living conditions of the urban poor well in advance of the actual relocations. Such entropic effects should be taken into account in the impact analysis of any major public project, as well as by any action program intended to compensate uprooted populations for the social costs of development. 177