Abstract
This article tried to question the viability of the impoverishment risks and reconstruction (IRR) model in assessing all risks development projects like dams brought to affected communities. It argued that in some cases the model fell short of showing exhaustively all risks communities faced as a result of grand development projects like dams. Taking the case of Tekeze dam in Ethiopia, it unearths some of the risks the model overlooked pertaining to the analysis of risks caused by dam-induced displacement and resettlement. Overlooked risks taken from the case of the Tekeze dam construction included: cattlelessness, constrained community mobility, loss of resilience, constrained access to education, and loss of aspects of human rights. Key words: Overlooked risks, IRR model, cattlessness, resilience, dam.
Highlights
Dwivedi (2002) avers that 1990s marked the emergence of an accumulated research on displacement and its disastrous effects on some segments of a society
Put differently: “Once the site of the dam and the purpose of the project are determined and defined by parameters of engineering cost, scheduling and the analysis of social and environmental impacts, the ability of information gathering through public hearings to significantly change the features of the project are reduced, flexibility on these matters is sacrificed” (Bartolome, 2000)
This article tried to look into the different impacts the Tekeze dam in northern Ethiopia had brought on the affected communities
Summary
Dwivedi (2002) avers that 1990s marked the emergence of an accumulated research on displacement and its disastrous effects on some segments of a society. Sociology and anthropology as fields of studies that give due attention to the living realities and challenges of human societies have taken the frontal battle in developing a more precise and integrative approach in understanding displacement and its complexities. More and more people began to be displaced from their so-called „stable life styles‟ in the name of conducting development projects. This prophesy has, seemed to take a wrong turn as more and more people in the governments‟ desperate fight to deal with the existing poverty become newly impoverished and the new state of impoverishment and destitution looks to be more lethal than the older one looked to be. To Dwivedi (2002): “this developing impasse necessitated fresh insights into the life-worlds of affected people, and a review of assumptions, questions, and options in social engineering, a challenge that was taken up in sociological and anthropological research”
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