Page 219 - Encyclopedia Of World History

displaced populations, typology of 569

Resettlement in China: The Three Gorges Dam

The following is an example of internal displacement village. When the time comes, I will refuse to move
for development reasons. It is extracted from a field re- out of my village.They will have to use police to drag
port on the Three Gorges Dam, to be built across the me away if they want me to leave.”
Chang-jiang (Yangzi) River in China, which is expected In an equally revealing statement, a county-seat
to require the resettlement of more than one million peo- physician said that many of his elderly patients con-
ple by the time of its projected completion in 2009. fided in him their determination to stay where they
are until the flood comes. “These old people have
Throughout my trip, interviewees expressed a sense of
lived on the riverbanks for so long,” he said. “They
resignation about the inevitability of the Three Gorges
have built their houses here, cultivated their vegetable
Dam project, and a widespread, though by no means
gardens on the slopes, opened small shops near the
unanimous, belief that people’s living standards and
docks, and they have their particular teahouses for
general quality of life would decline after resettlement.
talking with their old friends. It will cost them more
This feeling is particularly strong among farmers
to move everything than the government will provide
and elderly people. “Four years from now my entire
in compensation.Above all, they want to be buried in
family will have to move away whether we want to go
the family graveyard together with generations of
or not,” a woman farmer in Fengjie said, “but we still
ancestors. They are depressed by the economic loss
don’t know where we will rebuild our home. Are we
they will suffer and disturbed by the inevitable
going to live next to our old neighbors and relatives?
breakup of the emotional ties they have had with this
We don’t know.Are we going to have enough land to
land.”
farm? No, that I know as clearly as I know the five fin-
Source: Wu Ming. (1998). Resettlement problems of the Three Gorges Dam:A field report.
gers of my hand.There is no land to farm behind our Retrieved July 28, 2004 from http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/resettle.html

tives in such massive population movements as relocation situations, such as displacements caused by ethnic or reli-
programs, and “seeing like a state” (Scott 1998) is a gious persecutions of one group by another, in which the
proven cognitive lens on demographic processes. Com- state as well has a hand.) The practical comparative ad-
plementarily, the perspective of the civil society and the vantage of a typology based on agency is that it facilitates
individualized perspectives of displaced people are in policy recommendations concerning restricting or pro-
turn revealing perspectives on the politics, ethics, con- moting state intervention.
tents, and consequences of displacement.
Introducing the agent of displacement as a criterion Types of Development-
regroups differently the kinds of displacements described Caused Displacements
earlier. The most frequent kinds of state-initiated dis- Worldwide aggregated data, despite inherent gaps, indi-
placements are development programs that entail reset- cate that the single largest cause accounting for the high-
tlement; politically motivated displacements of ethnic or est number of displaced people is development—i.e.,
other minorities, sometimes termed “ethnic cleansing”; development projects that require changes in the people’s
dedensification of resource-poor or drought areas that are uses of land and water. Displacements by development
overpopulated (e.g., the case of Ethiopia); and displace- projects result from countries’ acute need to build mod-
ments related to state border changes. In the second cat- ern industrial infrastructure and transportation, expand
egory, the nonstate-caused displacements result from power generation, develop irrigated agriculture, imple-
either social or natural causes. They are population dis- ment urban renewal, and enhance social services—
placements caused by exploding civil wars; by natural schools, drinking water supply systems, and hospitals.
calamities such as floods, volcanic eruptions, or droughts; These developments require “right of way” and entail land
or by private sector companies. (There are also “mixed” expropriation and attendant dislocation of vast numbers