School of Geography - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview Available“I saw the impact of the [Economic Land Concession] on the men.” Notes towards a feminist political ecology of land access in Southeast Asia(BRICS Initiatives for Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS), 2015)While recent work on land grabbing in Cambodia examines the role of gender with regard to women’s roles in Cambodia (Brickell 2014, Amnesty International 2011, Licadho 2015), in this paper we reflect on gender and land access in rural Cambodia, considering the impacts to gender not only as related to “women” but as related to male identity and masculinity as well as related to livelihood change. To do so, we draw on a case study of forced eviction and subsequent creation of a Social Land Concession (SLC) in Kratie Province in Cambodia’s northeast. The paper is based on fieldwork and a systematic review of literature and policies of land access in Cambodia. Analysis of the case reveals that gender relationships were being significantly altered as a result of land title changes and struggles against eviction. We argue, furthermore, that it is not only women’s gender roles and responsibilities that are changing – it is also male responsibility, identity, and belonging that are being significantly altered, which is an aspect too often overlooked in gender and land literatures.
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePerceptions and Practices of Investment: China's hydropower investments in mainland Southeast Asia(BRICS Initiative for Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS), 2015)China is one of the major investors in hydropower development in mainland Southeast Asia, yet Chinese involvement in hydropower varies across the region. Popular and expert viewpoints on China’s investment in hydropower also vary widely. Many government representatives and domestic investors see Chinese partners as a key source of the large amounts of foreign exchange that are critical to development and economic growth. At the same time, questions about the ‘dominance’ of Chinese projects in various sectors, as well as about the motives guiding Chinese investments have triggered substantial public concern, with anti-Chinese attitudes intensifying across the region. In this working paper, we build on the insights gained from existing work on Chinese investment in the region, such as the rising powers framework, to examine the situation of ‘practice and perception’ of Chinese investment in hydropower in Vietnam and Myanmar. In considering these investments and trends, we also caution reinforcing or mobilizing xenophobic narratives about China.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableMeetings, meetings, meetings, and meetings: regional governance, cross-border environments, and sovereign authority(RSiS (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies), Nanyang Technological University, 2017)This working paper considers what regional meetings, such as the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Summit, accomplish in terms of transboundary environmental governance and reinforcement of sovereign authority, and what the implications are for who can speak on behalf of cross-border ecologies. The working paper introduces ‘summit ethnography’ as an approach for studying regional governance. This approach is positioned as a way of studying the elusive notions of regional environmental governance and regional governance community in a more embodied manner, emphasising that those who participate or are included/excluded as experts in regional governance are at stake in these meetings and the regional plans for development.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSalween Stories (Dynamic Storytelling Website with film)(www.salweenstories.org/, 2019)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableHydropower Politics and Conflict on the Salween River(SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG, 2019)This chapter examines the hydropower politics of the Salween River, with a focus on the projects proposed in Myanmar and their connections with neighboring China and Thailand via electricity trade, investment, and regional geopolitics.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableIntroduction: Resources Politics and Knowing the Salween River(Springer Nature, 2019-01-01)This chapter provides an overview of key arguments and concepts of the edited volume across three themes: resource politics, politics of making knowledge, and reconciling knowledge across divides.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableHydrosocial practice in an urbanising floodplain: local management and dilemmas of beneficial flooding(LIVERPOOL UNIV PRESS, 2020-06)In Southeast Asia, how flooding is named or studied is not only a matter of fact, but distinctions of flooding as ‘beneficial’ or ‘disaster’ elicit specific reactions from city management, government and residents. This is particularly true in cities across Myanmar, which have been chronically under-resourced to deal with flooding. This paper investigates the overlooked informal work of residents to manage flooding in urbanising Hpa An, a secondary city located along the Salween River. I draw on a hydrosocial approach and emphasise the practices of residents in local water management and responses to flooding. This contributes to our knowledge about flooding in Myanmar, as at present attentions have focused on large-scale, top down plans for water infrastructure in the country. I argue that close analysis of these practices in Hpa An reveals local hydrosocial relations as dynamic, locally embedded and responsive to change, but in ways that do not necessarily privilege the governance of water as development intervention or a centralised, statist endeavour. Without this knowledge of local responses and management of flooding, we are in a poor position to understand their impacts and interactions with broader changes in Myanmar and in a changing climate.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEnvironmental Politics in Thailand: Pasts, Presents, and Futures.(Routledge, 2020)This chapter traces the history of environmental politics in Thailand to understand the current effects and structures of environmental movements and to consider their future trajectories. It begins with an overview of thinking about the politics of nature, mapping out how the environment became defined as a specific field of struggle and its complex relationship with democratic politics more generally. Next the chapter considers a history of debates over forests, rivers, and other natural resources, considering the way that those spaces of nature served to mobilise different kinds of activists and structured environmental politics more generally. Then it considers how the history of “environmentalism” as such has carried with it certain kinds of contradictions and exclusions related to gender, class, and region, which reflect a number of broader contradictions in Thai politics. Last, the chapter suggests how the inclusion of struggles over urban space, disaster, gender, pollution, and industry might portend future environmental politics.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableA State of Knowledge of the Salween River: An Overview of Civil Society Research(SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG, 2019)This chapter presents an overview of civil society research on Salween, providing an overview of the existing knowledge of the basin and a start to identifying key knowledge gaps in support of more informed, inclusive, and accountable water governance in the basin.
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ItemKnowing the Salween River: Resource Politics of a Contested Transboundary River(SpringerOpen, 2019)This open access book focuses on the Salween River, shared by China, Myanmar, and Thailand, that is increasingly at the heart of pressing regional development debates. The basin supports the livelihoods of over 10 million people, and within it there is great socio-economic, cultural and political diversity. The basin is witnessing intensifying dynamics of resource extraction, alongside large dam construction, conservation and development intervention, that is unfolding within a complex terrain of local, national and transnational governance. With a focus on the contested politics of water and associated resources in the Salween basin, this book offers a collection of empirical case studies that highlights local knowledge and perspectives. Given the paucity of grounded social science studies in this contested basin, this book provides conceptual insights at the intersection of resource governance, development, and politics of knowledge relevant to researchers, policy-makers and practitioners at a time when rapid change is underway.