The temporally cumulative effects of hydropower development in northern Laos: Insights from the Nam Ou Basin

IF 3.4 2区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Geoforum Pub Date : 2025-05-28 DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104324

Sumiya Bilegsaikhan Taij , Diana Suhardiman , Jonathan Rigg

{"title":"The temporally cumulative effects of hydropower development in northern Laos: Insights from the Nam Ou Basin","authors":"Sumiya Bilegsaikhan Taij , Diana Suhardiman , Jonathan Rigg","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104324","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Projects like hydropower schemes often lead to ruptures in the fabric of life, especially among rural communities reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being. But livelihoods are shaped by longer pathways of change, and a focus on singular projects can sometimes hide the cumulative effects of successive interventions. Drawing on a study of the lower reaches of the Nam Ou Basin in the Pak Ou and Nam Bak districts of Luang Prabang province in Laos, this paper explores how the social outcomes of a major hydropower project emerge from and are contingent upon long-term changes in livelihoods that can be dated back to the 1970s. The Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project is only the most recent of a historical accumulation of extractive development projects and their cascading effects on a particular place and its inhabitants. The paper critically engages with how time and event, era and moment are employed in understanding the scale and nature of social and environmental transformations in places like the Nam Ou Basin.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"163 ","pages":"Article 104324"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Geoforum","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718525001241","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Projects like hydropower schemes often lead to ruptures in the fabric of life, especially among rural communities reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being. But livelihoods are shaped by longer pathways of change, and a focus on singular projects can sometimes hide the cumulative effects of successive interventions. Drawing on a study of the lower reaches of the Nam Ou Basin in the Pak Ou and Nam Bak districts of Luang Prabang province in Laos, this paper explores how the social outcomes of a major hydropower project emerge from and are contingent upon long-term changes in livelihoods that can be dated back to the 1970s. The Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project is only the most recent of a historical accumulation of extractive development projects and their cascading effects on a particular place and its inhabitants. The paper critically engages with how time and event, era and moment are employed in understanding the scale and nature of social and environmental transformations in places like the Nam Ou Basin.

查看原文本刊更多论文

老挝北部水电开发的时间累积效应：来自南乌盆地的见解

水电计划等项目往往导致生活结构破裂，特别是在依赖自然资源维持生计和福祉的农村社区。但是，生计是由更长期的变化路径所塑造的，对单一项目的关注有时会掩盖连续干预的累积效应。本文通过对老挝琅勃拉邦省北乌和南巴克地区南乌盆地下游地区的研究，探讨了一个大型水电项目的社会成果是如何产生的，并取决于可追溯到20世纪70年代的长期生计变化。南瓯河梯级水电项目只是历史上众多采伐开发项目及其对特定地区及其居民的连锁效应的最新例证。本文批判性地探讨了如何利用时间和事件、时代和时刻来理解南瓯盆地等地社会和环境变化的规模和性质。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Geoforum GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

7.30

自引率

5.70%

发文量

201

期刊介绍： Geoforum is an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy and environment, through national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, local economic and urban planning and resources management. The journal also includes a Critical Review section which features critical assessments of research in all the above areas.