Three Gorges Dam: Displacement, Agency, and Community Analysis Report

This report analyzes the forced migration resulting from the Three Gorges Dam project in China, examining its impact on displaced communities. The report focuses on the displacement of nearly a million people and the subsequent relocation efforts, highlighting the challenges and discrepancies in compensation and support provided by the Chinese state. It delves into the transformation of people's relationships with the state, the effects on their agency, self-sufficiency, and connection to their communities and families. The study references scholarly articles to support its analysis, assessing whether the benefits of the development project outweigh the costs and if these are equitably distributed. The report examines the complexities of this large-scale displacement, revealing both the intended benefits and the unintended negative consequences experienced by the affected populations, particularly the impact on their economic well-being and social integration.

Running head: THREE GORGES DAM
Three Gorges Dam
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1THREE GORGES DAM
Before the dam had even started building, the path of the Yangze river had to be
diverted and this caused the displacement of almost a million people from that area that was
scheduled to be flooded. With these people displaced from their homes, they will be given
newly constructed homes that is built by the Chinese state behind the dam. However, in
reality, the displaced people ended up residing in places all over China (Tilt & Gerkey, 2016).
The relocation of these people has been proven to be more of a serious responsibility than
building the dam is. Most of the people were happy to leave their homes, and also be paid
compensation by the Chinese state which enabled these people to be able to earn enough to
buy a couple more houses and rent them out for further income. However, an overwhelming
majority of the people who were relocated were not given the appropriate compensation as
they were promised because of malpractice by the Chinese state – corruption and
embezzlement (Miao et al., 2015). The people who were displaces mainly consisted of poorly
educated families of farmers who were made ever poorer because of this displacement, and
their move to a major city did them more harm than the good that was predicted as they were
completely isolated. It would have been hard to predict in the beginning if the families would
have indeed been compensated adequately, so most of the people had taken the risk to trust
their government but most of them ended up being worse off.

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References:
Miao, C., Borthwick, A., Liu, H., & Liu, J. (2015). China’s policy on dams at the crossroads:
removal or further construction?. Water, 7(5), 2349-2357.
Tilt, B., & Gerkey, D. (2016). Dams and population displacement on China’s Upper Mekong
River: Implications for social capital and social–ecological resilience. Global
Environmental Change, 36, 153-162.