Projects > Political Ecology of Risk

Toward a Political Ecology of Risk in River Basin Development: the case of the Mekong

The objective of this project is to examine the multi-scaled social construction, and more specifically mediation of risk associated with environmental change and large scale development interventions in the Mekong Region. The research aims to make a theoretical contribution to the rapidly emerging field of political ecology, by moving beyond an analysis of winners and losers based on certainty and post-facto impacts. It moves beyond the actuarial notions of risk of the environmental risk assessment professional and works toward an analysis driven by the inherent uncertainties that underlie the individual construction; and the institutional and process responses, and social distribution of environmental risk. The specific aims of this project are to:

• Examine the typology of risks that appear in the public record such as in ESIAs, CBAs, technical studies and reports, and the media
• Determine the correspondence or lack thereof between different actor/stakeholder groups in the typologies of perceived risk and determine the epistemological significance of such a differentiation among different groups in the Mekong River Basin
• Determine the manner and extent to which the political and ethical/moral rationalities of different stakeholder groups have played in mediating particular risk typologies onto the public record including ESIAs, CBAs, technical studies and reports, and the media in the Mekong River Basin and how these have been distributed.
  

Duration: 2003 - 2005

Partners: Nan Civil Society Coordination Centre; University of Can Tho, Green Watershed

Funding bodies: Australian Research Council (ARC)

© 2005 Australian Mekong Resource Centre