Slow Violence and Water (in)justice: Feminist Political Ecologies of Intergenerational Struggles in the Mekong Region

Project Summary

Since the 1980s, Southeast Asia’s Mekong Region has seen a radical transformation from “battlefields to marketplaces” that heralded regional development and economic benefits. Yet, for many who rely on the transboundary Mekong, a river that supports an estimated 300 million people, the region’s transformation meant not only a loss of biodiversity but also the gradual decimation and displacement of a way of life and making a living over generations. In other words, the impacts and benefits of this transformation are not evenly distributed, and for some, mean persistent but silent, generational, and cumulative experiences of marginalization and impoverishment. In this project, we propose examining these processes and uneven impacts as a type of “slow violence” that emphasizes time and generation in analysis.

Slow violence refers to “a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is not typically viewed as violence at all” (Nixon 2011, 2). Our study will unravel the workings of slow violence, a violence that is often overlooked, through research and analysis on the persistent but difficult-to-detect impacts of development-induced displacement and accumulation of environmental impacts on Mekong communities that span generations. We propose doing so by developing a novel framework that brings together slow violence with feminist political ecology as a way to understand the heterogeneous and multifaceted impacts of development and violence across space and time. This is important in the context of development along the Mekong River because more typically, inability to benefit from economic development is considered in relation to discrete projects or governments, rather than in relation to enduring legacies of violence, colonialism, and displacement that span generations and that are disproportionately born by marginalized groups. Such an oversight also means conceptually and practically that the negative impacts are more easily overshadowed by real or perceived economic gains. Thus, we aim to provide new insights into the uneven impacts, responses and struggles across time and space, and to do so we will work with co-researchers who bear the brunt of these impacts.

A core strength of the project is the equitable partnership involving four universities and two non-academic organizations in Canada and Southeast Asia with extensive experience and shared commitment to knowledge co-production and advancing water rights and social justice in the Mekong Region. Our shared commitments are reflected in the project plan for research, training, and knowledge mobilization. Research collaboration is organized under 3 knowledge clusters, with each group led by co-applicants and inclusive of non-academic partners and students. The team of 9 leading researchers, 8 graduate students, and 6 partner organizations will work with marginalized community members as co-researchers, using methods such as photovoice that embrace nuance and complexity to highlight the otherwise “invisible” slow violence and its uneven impacts.

Knowledge mobilization will also be co-produced between academic and non-academics. Research will be published in top academic journals as well as policy briefs and websites. Academic audiences will be engaged at 4 academic conferences, including Canadian Council for Southeast Asia Studies; students will be trained by senior researchers, a valuable opportunity for student mentoring in a new research area. Relying on existing networks in the region, the project will engage a diverse range of stakeholders via policy dialogues and seminars and will culminate with photo exhibitions and meetings hosted by partners in Southeast Asia.

For more information: ngadao@yorku.ca