How do environmental impact assessments fail to prevent social conflict? Government technologies in a dam project in Colombia
Abstract
We analyze environmental impact assessment (EIA) for infrastructure development projects in Latin America through the case of the "El Cercado" dam on the Rancheria river in La Guajira Province of northern Colombia. We argue that social and environmental conflicts regarding development projects are not only the result of deficient EIA implementation but also of historically established power relations and deep-rooted beliefs concerning the economy and socio-spatial relations, of which EIAs are a constituting and enabling element. We focus on governmentality practices from an ethnographic political ecology perspective to trace how the EIA uses the concept of "areas of influence" as a standardized inclusion/exclusion technique, limited by its static nature and functioning as a legitimizing device for governmental interest to expand neoliberal economies in natural resource-strategic regions. Our analysis aims to understand how EIAs used for infrastructure development projects in Latin America have failed to prevent socio-environmental conflicts. At the same time, we question the notions of "space", "influence", and "affected population" behind EIA practices. We conclude that EIAs are a government technology of neoliberal environmental governance that has the potential to exclude the socio-spatial dynamics of local populations while depoliticizing the interests behind the project. With this article, we contribute to the ethnographic approach to governmentality in the context of infrastructure development projects in Latin America and to the understanding of the role of expert knowledge and technologies of government in neoliberal hydro-politics.
Keywords: Environmental Impact Assessment, dam, hydro-politics, government technologies, social conflict
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alfonso, T., L. Grueso, M. Prada and Y. Salinas. 2011. El proyecto sobre el RÃo RancherÃa: La represa de El Cercado. In Derechos enterrados. Comunidades étnicas y campesinas en Colombia, nueve casos de estudio. Bogotá: Ediciones Uniandes.
Alimonda, H. 2011. La colonialidad de la naturaleza. Una aproximación a la ecologÃa polÃtica Latinoamericana. In La naturaleza colonizada. EcologÃa polÃtica y minerÃa en América Latina. Buenos Aires: CLACSO y Ediciones CICCUS.
Ãngel, E., S.I Carmona and F. Sánchez. 2003. Indicadores socioculturales para la evaluación y seguimiento de la dimensión social en los EIA Y PMA. MedellÃn: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Archila, M. (ed). 2015. "Hasta cuando soñemos": extractivismo e interculturalidad en el sur de la Guajira. Bogotá: CINEP/Programa por la Paz.
Ãvila-GarcÃa, P. 2016. Hacia una ecologÃa polÃtica del agua en Latinoamérica. Revista de Estudios Sociales 55: 18–31.
Bakker, K. 2012. Water: political, biopolitical, material. Social Studies of Science 42(4): 616–623.
Bakker, K. 2013. Neoliberal versus postneoliberal water: geographies of privatization and resistance. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103(2): 253–260.
Banerjee, D. 2013. Environmental justice and the state: expert knowledge and local discourses in an environmental justice movement. Environmental Justice 6(5): 183–187.
Bottaro, L., A. Latta and M. Sola. 2014. La politización del agua en los conflictos por la megaminerÃa: discursos y resistencias en Chile y Argentina. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 97: 97–115.
Budds, J. 2004. Power, nature and neoliberalism: the political ecology of water in Chile. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25(3): 322–342.
Budds, J. and L. Hinojosa. 2012. Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru. Water Alternatives 5(1): 119-137.
Burrier, G. 2016. The developmental state, civil society, and hydroelectric politics in Brazil. The Journal of Environment and Development 25(3): 332–358.
Carmona, S. and P. Jaramillo. 2015. Números, conmensuración y gobernanza en los estudios de impacto ambiental. Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, TecnologÃa y Sociedad 10(30): 61-79.
Castree, N. 2008. Neoliberalising nature: the logics of deregulation and reregulation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 40(1): 131–152.
Castree, N. 2010. Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment: a synthesis and evaluation of the research. Environment and Society: Advances in Research 1(1): 5–45.
Cernea, M.M. 1994. Using knowledge from social science in development projects. Project Appraisal 9(2): 83–94.
Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH). 2005. Medidas cautelares 2005 – Colombia. [accessed February 28 2017].
Consejo Nacional de PolÃtica Económica y Social (CONPES) 2005. Conpes 3362. Importancia estratégica de la construcción de la presa El Cercado y las conducciones principales hacia las áreas de RancherÃa y San Juan del Cesar. [accessed December 12 2020].
Corpoguajira. 2011. Plan de ordenamiento de la Cuenca del RÃo RancherÃa. Diagnóstico general. Tomo 2. CORPOGUAJIRA.
Czernietzki, K.J. 2008. El desarrollo nacional versus la cosmovisión indÃgena: el caso de la represa del RÃo RancherÃa como megaproyecto en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Masters Thesis. Bogotá: Universidad de Los Andes.
Duarte-AbadÃa, B., R.A Boelens and T. Roa-Avendaño. 2015. Hydropower, encroachment and the re-patterning of hydrosocial territory: the case of Hidrosogamoso in Colombia. Human Organization 74(3): 243–254.
Duncan, G. 2009. Los señores de la guerra. De paramilitares, mafiosos y autodefensas en Colombia. Bogotá: Ediciones Planeta, Colombiana Fundación Seguridad y Democracia.
El Pilón. 2010. Represa del RÃo RancherÃa: palanca de bienestar agrÃcola y ambiental de La Guajira. El Pilón. [accessed February 28 2017]. http://elpilon.com.co/represa-del-rio-rancheria-palanca-de-bienestar-agricola-y-ambiental-de-la-guajira/
El Tiempo. 2007. IndÃgenas wiwa se oponen a represa que llevará agua al desierto de La Guajira. El Tiempo. [accessed March 4 2017]. http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3657151
Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Foucault, M. 2009[2004]. Security, territory, population: lectures at the Collège de France 1977-1978. New York: Macmillan.
Gómez, A., L. Wagner, B. Torres, F. MartÃn and F. Rojas. 2014. Resistencias sociales en contra de los megaproyectos hÃdricos en América Latina. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 97: 75–96.
Guillén, G. 2015. El rÃo que se robaron. Video.
Halford, D.K. 1979. Environmental impact assessment. Ecology 60(5): 1078–1079.
Harvey, D. 2007. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Indepaz. 2013. El rÃo RancherÃa, perdido en el desierto. Bogotá: Indepaz Ediciones.
Ituarte, L.D.M. 2015. EcologÃa polÃtica y escalas en la gestión del agua. Cuencas hidrográficas, estados y poderes territoriales en la PenÃnsula Ibérica (España y Portugal). Revista Geoamazônia 3(6): 54–82.
Lefebvre, H. 1991[1974]. The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Li, F. 2009. Documenting accountability: environmental impact assessment in a Peruvian mining project. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 32(2): 218–236.
Li, T. 2007a. Governmentality. Anthropologica 49(2): 275–281.
Li, T. 2007b. The will to improve: governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Linton, J. and J. Budds. 2014. The hydrosocial cycle: defining and mobilizing a relational-dialectical approach to water. Geoforum 57: 170–180.
Martinez-Alier, J. 1995. Political ecology, distributional conflicts, and economic incommensurability. New Left Review 211: 70.
Massey, D. 1993. Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place. In J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam and G. Robertson (eds.). Mapping the future: local cultures, global change. London: Routledge. Pp. 59–69.
Montoya, V., A. GarcÃa and C.A. Ospina. 2014. Andar dibujando y dibujar andando: cartografÃa social y producción colectiva de conocimientos. Nómadas 40: 191–205.
O'Faircheallaigh, C. 2017. Shaping projects, shaping impacts: community-controlled impact assessments and negotiated agreements. Third World Quarterly 38(5): 1181–1197.
Peluso, N.L. 1995. Whose woods are these? Counter-mapping forest territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode 27(4): 383–406.
Puerta Silva, C. 2010. El proyecto del Cerrejón: un espacio relacional para los indÃgenas wayuu, la empresa minera y el Estado colombiano. BoletÃn de AntropologÃa 24(41): 149–179.
Ribeiro, G.L. 1994. Transnational capitalism and hydropolitics in Argentina: the Yacyretá High Dam. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Romero, H. and J. Sasso. 2014. Proyectos hÃdricos y ecologÃa polÃtica del desarrollo en Latinoamérica: hacia un marco analÃtico. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 97: 55–74.
Rose, N. 1999. Powers of freedom: reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, N. and P. Miller. 1992. Political power beyond the state: problematics of government. The British Journal of Sociology 43(2): 173–205.
Segura, J.M. 2016. Empresa, poder e individuo: el neoliberalismo como productor de subjetividad. Civilizar Ciencias Sociales y Humanas 16: 113–126.
Serje, M. 2010. Introducción: desarrollo y conflicto. In M. Serje (ed.), Desarrollo y conflicto: territorios, recursos y paisajes en la historia oculta de los proyectos y polÃticas. Bogotá: Ediciones Uniandes.
Serje, M. 2017. Social relations: a critical reflection on the notion of social impacts as change. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 65: 139–146.
Svampa, M. 2015. Commodities consensus: neoextractivism and enclosure of the commons in Latin America. South Atlantic Quarterly 114(1): 65–82.
Ulloa, A. 2004. La construcción del nativo ecológico. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de AntropologÃa e Historia -ICANH- COLCIENCIAS.
Uribe, C.A. 1992. GeografÃa humana de Colombia: nordeste indÃgena. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura Hispánica.
Unión Temporal Guajira (UTG). 2004. Estudio de impacto ambiental y plan de manejo ambiental proyecto RÃo RancherÃa. Distrito de riego RancherÃa y suministro a distrito San Juan del Cesar. Contrato No.0140/01 cedido por INAT a Incoder.
World Commission on Dams (WCD). 2000. Dams and development: a new framework for decision-making. The report of the World Commission on Dams. London: Earthscan.
Wittfogel, K.A. 1957. Oriental despotism: a comparative study of total power. New Haven: Yale University Press.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.23223
Copyright (c) 2020 Susana Carmona Castillo, Claudia Puerta Silva
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.