Resettlement with People First: Counterfactual Pathways

This book explores the impact of new reservoirs, mines, plantations, and superhighways on people's lives and livelihoods, and proposes that the process of resettlement should be accountable to those impacted, empowering them to achieve just outcomes and share in the benefits of development projects. It offers counterfactual case studies from Asia, Africa, and South America, considering dams, mines, roads, and housing, and concludes with practical policy suggestions for displacement from development and slow onset climate change.

Format: Hardback
Length: 268 pages
Publication date: 01 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Should people in the way lose out as new reservoirs, mines, plantations, or superhighways displace them from their homes and livelihoods? 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 included the affected people in decision-making about whether and how they should resettle. Drawing on contributions from leading and emerging scholars from around the world, this book considers cases involving dams, mines, roads, and housing, among others, from Asia, Africa, and South America. In each case, the counterfactual approach invites us to reconsider how the dynamics of accountability play out through resettlement hazards 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 for displacement arising both from development and from slow-onset climate change. This book's novel approach focusing on the people's agency in the dynamics of governance, accountability, and (dis)empowerment in development projects with displacement and resettlement will appeal to academic researchers, development practitioners, and policymakers.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032558660