This book conceptualises the ongoing hydropower expansion in Southwest China as a socio-political and transnational project transcending the construction of dams. Chapters in this volume are organised around three sections spanning hydropower and resettlement governance, rural livelihoods, and international relations connected to China's hydropower expansion. Dam projects of various scales are analysed as infrastructure projects that shape peoples' livelihoods, the environment, and China's relations with Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Examines the expansion of Southwest China's hydropower capacity and its impacts beyond China, bringing together novel insights into the domestic origins and international implications of Chinese hydropower development Probes various compromises and trade-offs emerging from the ongoing hydropower expansion in Southwest China Offers a multidisciplinary view on the political economy of hydropower in Southwest China scrutinizing multiple policy fields at various scales, ranging from infrastructure development to energy provision and from development finance to resettlement and foreign relations Brings together emerging and established scholars whose multidisciplinary research addresses the politics, livelihoods, and transnational dimensions of hydropower expansion in Southwest China

Autorentext

Jean-François Rousseau is Assistant Professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on nature-society relations and addresses the relationships between agrarian change, infrastructure development, and ethnic minority livelihood diversification in Southwest China.

Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests include regional development, central-local relations, and energy and resource governance with a focus on China. She is the author of the book, Dams, Migration and Authoritarianism in China: The Local State in Yunnan, published by Routledge.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Introduction: Southwest China's hydropower expansion and why it matters there and beyond (Jean-François Rousseau, Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla).- Chapter 2. The water-energy nexus of Southwest China's rapid hydropower development: Challenges and trade-offs in the interaction between hydropower generation and utilisation (Thomas Hennig, Darrin Magee).- Chapter 3. Leaving the Three Gorges after resettlement: Who left, why did they leave, and where did they go? (Brooke Wilmsen, Andrew van Hulten, Yuefang Duan).- Chapter 4. Contestation over moral economy: Distant resettlement from the Three Gorges area to the Pearl River Delta (Bettina Gransow) etc.