Development is not an all-powerful machinery imposing its will
upon powerless actors. Rather, it is a complex process that brings
together multiple actors with diverse agendas. Participants' power
in affecting outcomes results from their ability to mobilize
discursive and material resources and to control and manipulate
time and spatial contexts. This work critically examines
development practices and various forms of collective action based
on detailed ethnographical analysis of the Yacyreta hydroelectric
project. The story unfolds in the borderlands of Paraguay and
Argentina in the heart of the Latin American Southern Cone where
local political cultures are responding to global forces that now
dictate economic integration. Although relatively unknown today to
the world, this area promises to exert a strong global impact in
the near future.
The saga of the Yacyreta hydroelectric project on the
Argentina-Paraguay border not only illustrates the radical change
in the power dynamics of the Latin American Southern Cone region,
but also reflects the transformation of development discourse and
practice during the last decades. It examines the relationship
between the weakened role of the nation-state in decision making
and the emergence of nongovernmental organizations and grassroots
movements as key development actors. Because the Yacyreta dam is
being built in the borderlands of two countries as a binational
undertaking, it threatens the boundedness of nation-states
precisely where sovereignty is traditionally guarded--the national
frontiers. Under these and other global challenges of
deterritorialation such as processes of regional integration
encouraged by Mercosur (Common Market of the South), popular
conflicts have become spatialized, reflecting both the resilience
of national imaginings and histories of exclusion and
exploitation.
This study demystifies populist and romanticized academic
constructions of subaltern groups. It shows that the outcomes of
popular struggles can be one of accomodation and cooperation and
not resistance. Nonetheless, they constitute serious threats to
planned development. It challenges current approaches in
development that advocate participation, empowerment, and
communication.
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