Hydropower Modernity Meets Landscape Spirits: A case study of hydropower

development in Katu territories of upland Quang Nam, Vietnam.

Nikolas rhem, Uppsala Universitet
This paper examines two recent hydropower projects in areas populated by Katu people in
upland Quang Nam, Central Vietnam. One, the A Vuong dam in Maccoih municipality
was hailed in Vietnamese media as a flagship of Vietnamese development interventions.
Although some international NGOs contributed development aid to the resettlement
process accompanying the dam project, the project was completely Vietnamese-owned.
Around the same time another hydropower project was initiated in a nearby locality the
Song Bung 4 Plant. This time the Asian Development Bank entered wholesale as a cofinancer of the project.
This paper, based on conversations with local Katu people about the effects of the A Vuong
project as well as a review of relevant development/evaluation reports (about both the A
Vuong and the Song Bung 4), not only reveals that the projects had a number of
unanticipated environmental and social-economic consequences for the local Katu (that
went largely unnoticed by the involved international development actors) but also
interesting facts about the cultural landscape that was lost in the process of the dam
constructions. On the one hand, the paper explores the impact of the dam projects on the
local (animist) cosmology and, on the other, it takes a close look at the modernisation
ontology of the development actors themselves the Vietnamese State (A Vuong Plant)
and the ADB (Song Bung 4 Plant).
The paper provides a poignant example of how the subtle interconnection between
animistic ontology and local landscapes is severed by developmentalist interventions such
as the ones discussed here, resulting in environmental erosion with grave consequences for
local livelihoods. In particular, the paper questions the logic by which development actors
appear to turn a blind eye on the negative environmental effects of hydropower
development while shifting much of the blame on indigenous shifting cultivation and
hunting. Finally, the paper also looks at the Kinhization process the process of ethnocultural conversion/mainstreaming which follows in the wake of the massive
infrastructure development in Vietnams highlands.