Resettlement with People First

Book excerpt: "Should local people lose out as new reservoirs, mines, plantations, or superhighways displace them from their homes? What if the process of resettlement were made accountable to those impacted, empowering them to achieve just outcomes and to share in the benefits of development projects? This book seeks to answer these questions, putting forward powerful counterfactual case studies to assess what problems real-world development projects would likely have avoided if the project had followed a higher standard, such as the World Commission on Dams policy framework. Drawing on contributions from leading and emerging scholars from around the world, this book considers cases involving dams, mines, roads, housing, amongst others, from Asia, Africa, and South America. In each case, the counterfactual approach invites us to reconsider the dynamics of accountability and the asymmetries of power relations in the negotiation of displacement benefits and redress. Considering a range of theoretical and ethical perspectives, the book concludes with practical alternative policy suggestions. This book's novel approach to the dynamics of governance, accountability, and (dis)empowerment in development projects with displacement and resettlement will appeal. to academic researchers, development practitioners, and policy makers"--