Hedging Hydro-Hegemony: dispossession along the Mekong & agency through localism

Abstract

Since the first upstream dam was completed on the Mekong River 25 years ago, Chiang Khong's riparian communities in Northern Thailand have been on the frontline of the ecological changes affecting the entire river. The commodification of the Mekong into its use for electricity and as a corridor of trade has dispossessed riparian communities from access to the river's natural resources. This study explores the many dimensions of this dispossession in the case of the Tai Lue riparian village of Had Bai in Chiang Khong. In the face of this loss of natural resources, a network has coalesced around the local conservation group Rak Chiang Khong to campaign against the rapids blasting of the Thai-Laos stretch of the Mekong River that are central to plans for the river's navigability development. This conservation movement have been successful in articulating the looming social and ecological effects and stemming this further development. Chiang Khong's grassroots movement to preserve their local environment occurs at the intersection of a macro and micro phenomenon. At the macro-level, the growing regional influence of China and changing nature of the Mekong that has accompanied this rise provides the larger context for the significance of this movement. Dam construction and navigability development of the Mekong are part of much broader changes that are reshaping the geographic, political, and economic landscape of mainland Southeast Asia. The concept of hydro-hegemony, dominance over a river basin, captures this macro phenomenon. At the micro-level, the local network of Chiang Khong's riparian villagers has found their voice through localism, emphasizing the salience and significance of local identity and ecology. Imbued with a sense of agency and empowered through the capability of capturing and articulating local knowledge, the grassroots movement has been effective to-date in their campaign to prevent the local rapids blasting and is now expanding to include all of Thailand's Mekong communities in the hopes of giving locals a voice at the policy-level. Based on interviews with NGO members, villagers of Had Bai, and locals from Chiang Khong's other riparian communities, this study explores the intersection of these phenomena, discussing the geopolitical and environmental significance of one community's campaign to preserve their local ecology