El impacto social de las grandes represas hidroeléctricas: Un análisis desde la Antropología Social

RADOVICH, JUAN CARLOS

Gobernanza y Manejo Sustentable del Agua / Governance and sustainable management of water

Mnemosyne

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2011; p. 387 - 398

Social Impact of Big Dams from Anthropological point of view                                                                                                 Juan Carlos Radovich*   Abstract               From ancient times, for instance, 8.000 years B.P. big dams were built in several civilizations all over the world. In ancient China, India, Egipt and the Mesopotamian Region, dams for the purpose of irrigation were constructed. In the Andean area also, water has played a fundamental role for prehispanic cultures.             In modern times, the hydroenergetic era begins with the development of turbines in 1832. Although, large scale dams boom started around 1930, when turbines began to be designed more precisely.             Nevertheless, involuntary resettlement was the more negative effect caused by this kind of large scale projects. Then, forced displacement of populations caused by the building of large scale dams has been a controversial issue. By nature, involuntary resettlement disrupts and most likely destroys a previous way of life generating hardship and stress on the affected population.             In many cases programs has focused on compensation to land owners for lost assets. But the affected populations often includes landless peasants, cultivators, household workers, and villager workers who do not possess land to sustain their families. When rural people are affected always the main social impact is the loss of their main source of income. In these cases all the affected populations must be compensated and rehabilitated.      In spite of this, the main goal to achieve is to include in the resettlement project all the components that can generate the replacement of different sources of income.             Another issue to take in account related to involuntary resettlement, is the differential responses to relocation process caused by the heterogeneity of the affected populations based mainly on gender, ethnicity, social classes and other issues. Also, relocatees always experience different kinds and intensities of impacts during the various stages of the resettlement process. In spite of this, policy making and planning levels must deal with these differences to achieve a positive end to the projects. Relocation involves the movement of populations from one place, and environment, to another, and thus involves the modification of the physical and social environment to which relocatees had to adapt.             In spite of this, extreme positions call for an immediate ban of hydroprojects related to the negative ecological and social effects produced during a long time. On the other hand, those who support dams, highlight the pressing need of generating hydropower for “development” and “progress”.             Between 1970 and 1980, in Argentina several large scale dams for hydropower purpose were built, mainly in the North Patagonian region. El Chocon big dam, was the first built at the beginning of the 1970’s over the Limay river in the provinces of Rio Negro and Neuquen, as an intensive investment process, which ends at the middle of the 1990’s with the privatization process of all the hydroelectric projects from the North Patagonian Region. In present times, after four decades since the start of this process, structural conditions have changed in Argentina. Now is very difficult to obtain private investment in this sector and States are weaker to afford this process.             Nevertheless, the scientific analysis of big dam social impacts is a difficult task, because of the lack of new theoretical and methodological frameworks to understand this process in account of the complexity of present world. Resumen La construcción de grandes represas hidroeléctricas es el resultado de múltiples aspectos (económicos, sociales, políticos, culturales, técnicos y ecológicos). El proceso de apropiación económica de los recursos hídricos, relacionados con la instalación de megarepresas implica siempre un proceso previo de expropiación y de reconversión de la base material y social de la región circundante. Más allá del espacio físico destinado a la ubicación de la presa y su embalse artificial, obtenido mediante la inundación de amplias áreas, otros sectores son apropiados con el fin de ubicar villas temporarias para la instalación de operarios y técnicos, o para la instalación de puentes y vías de comunicación específicas y otros tipos de obras complementarias, fomentando actividades económicas intensivas en capital y escasas en fuerza de trabajo. Entre los impactos más negativos que sufren las poblaciones afectadas se destaca el reasentamiento o relocalización compulsiva de las mismas como necesidad del megaemprendimiento, convirtiéndose esta situación en un verdadero “drama social”, cuyas consecuencias instalan un acelerado proceso de cambios socioculturales con efectos que superan la temporalidad que la construcción de la gran obra demanda. Asimismo, dichos efectos someten a duras pruebas a las estrategias de vida de los grupos humanos involucrados, poniendo en evidencia que las presas hidroeléctricas poseen un costo social y ecológico muy elevado que no todos costean por igual debido al encubrimiento ideológico que plantea el discurso del “desarrollo” y el “progreso”. Esto ocurre especialmente en el caso de las poblaciones indígenas y campesinas, las cuales están cotidianamente en estrecha relación con su medio ambiente y suelen ser quienes se convierten en víctimas del “progreso”, muchas veces en calidad de “refugiados ecológicos”.   * Ph  D.  Social Anthropologist.  Professor and Researcher at the UBA-CONICET-INAPL.