Squeezed between Land and Water: Rupture, Frontier-making, and Resource Conflicts at Cambodia’s Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Dam

Hydropower dam projects in the Lower Mekong Basin are part of long-term and interactive land and water transformations, displacement, and violence. Within these ongoing processes, dams represent intense and adverse episodes of disruption that escalate nature-society transformations. Drawing on research at Cambodia’s Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Dam (LS2 Dam), we examine how such episodes of nature-society rupture catalyze new waves of frontier-making and mobility that further intensify land and resource struggles. In this ethnically diverse landscape, the abrupt hydrological changes caused by the LS2 Dam have escalated land struggles among various ethnic groups, especially migrants intent on claiming land and water resources, and Indigenous/minority groups displaced by the dam. We show how historical relations with land and socio-political marginalization by the state have produced differentiated opportunities, risks, and frictions among the four main ethnic groups present in this landscape: Indigenous Bunong, Lao, Cham, and Khmer. The LS2 Dam case shows how nature-society rupture reifies frontier dynamics by disrupting existing land/water relations, which precipitates in-migration, new resource claims, and associated conflict along ethnic lines.

挤压在陆地与水体之间:柬埔寨塞桑河下游2号大坝的破裂、边疆创建及资源冲突

关键词：水电、湄公河、原住民的、冲突、流动性、族群

湄公河下游的水电大坝项目是长期以来相互作用的土地和水体变迁、流离失所和暴力现象的一部分。在这些正在持续进行的过程当中，大坝代表了强烈而有害的破裂性事件， 加剧了自然与社会的变迁。我们根据对柬埔寨塞桑河下游2号大坝的研究，考察了这些自然与-社会“破裂”的事件如何催化了边疆制造和流动性的新浪潮， 进一步加剧了土地和资源的争夺。 在这个多样化族群的景观中，大坝引发的突发性水文变化已经导致不同族群之间——特别是有土地和水资源诉求意图的移民，以及因为大坝而被迁移的原住民和少数群体——土地斗争的升级。我们表明与土地的历史关系以及国家制造的社会与政治边缘化是怎样在这片土地上的四个主要族群（土著布农族、老挝族、占族族和高棉族）中制造出差异性的机会、风险与摩擦。LS2 的案例表明自然与社会之间的破裂是怎样通过破坏已有的土地/水体关系而实质化了边疆的动态，引发了人口迁入、新的资源诉求以及族群间的相关的冲突。

Translated by Li Guo