Skip to main content

Search

Lord6

lucypei

Protests to demand inclusion as project-affected people

Oppositional mobilizations - “internal to the logic of the project” p153 - so people do not consider something less damaging to the land and animals or a way to do it with less extraction of resources and profit for elite people in Kathmandu or in Europe/the US/China who do not really have to bear any of the cost of it. 

 

The author thinks that information circulated about the shareholder model - financial education - would be helpful - he notes that it would have to be oversimplified and made into financial narratives even though it is a complex socioenvironmental decisions. But his final conclusion is more optimistic. I think this kind of corporate-led education is a big foreclosure.

 

Lord 5

lucypei

The certifications, following through with trainings that were asked for, and doing the certification ceremony for an audience

 

Rhetoric of benefit-sharing

 

The high levels of buy-in; the quotes from locals themselves supporting the dam and the company, they can honestly boast strong local support of the projects - what better proof than that people have dug up their life savings from the ground to buy the stocks?

 

Lord4

lucypei

The corporate actors aren’t particularly fleshed out in this account. The World Bank people weren’t expecting the Nepalese people to come deliver demands in a very educated and efficient way 

 

Ah there was one part where the corporate actors feel like the Nepalese people who live near the dam sites are extorting them - in this case they don’t feel like they’re helping but rather conceding to unreasonable demands, the poor corporation has to be the government and the villagers have these crazy ideas about how much money the corporation has (the corporation does have the money… it’s extremely ironic)

 

We don’t get to know how the corporate actors feel about the shareholder model - do they begrudge the shares not being sold to their family or something like that, or do they recognize that this is really also a sharing of risk and cost, more than just being pure benefits in a ‘help’ way?

 

Lord 3

lucypei

Power outages and material scarcity → moral and social authority for government and corps to act quickly - “Discursive momentum”

Hydropower has been reframed as a sustainable/green energy source, esp. With carbon finance, so now institutions like the World Bank are funding it - it is a responsible way to bring about development. In Nepal, the government is also trying to declare Nepal as “open to business” - the ethical thing to do is to let corporations in to build hydropower dams 

 

Local people are there with them - some people say they are willing to have their houses submerged, the government is the unethical party for blocking the development from happening - the quote from someone is ‘some foreign country should get Nepal and develop it’ (Rest 2012:113), p151 here.

 

Lord2

lucypei

This text has a lot on governance:

More people bought shares during Chilime Hydropower Company public offering in 2010 than voted in the recent national elections in that more remote district. 

 

“Hydropower is our government now” - p150 - there is a “vacuum of governance” - so “hydropower sector has become a major political force in its own right, at both the national and local scales, adn investment in the hydropower sector is seen as a bellwether of political stability. The Nepalese state is reforming alongside the political economy of hydropower - the production of the hydropower future ensures the economic and political coherence of the state, and vice versa” - p150 - hydropower sector and Nepalese government are mutually constructive

P151 - “role of hydropower companies seems to rival or eclipse the role of government as a provider of social services…” So when people get classified as project-affected they finally get services that the government has failed to provide - better entitlements, faster, more promising recognition. The corporations even complain about being treated as the government: “To them we are the government, they give us all their demands” p151

 

Not just the corporation, but “industry beholden to donor standards and international conventions is a much more effective” p152

 

“Neoliberal spaces of exception” - so the state has made a lot of exceptions and ceded a lot of power to the corps (this isn’t directly CSR) 

Corps can make competing territorial claims - people who are project-affected “now attempt to make claims as project-affected people with rights, based on the architecture of international conventions and agreements”  p153

 

P155 - the corporation collected data to determine who would qualify as “project-affected” - it was more detailed and recent than the census - they provided this data to the local government - the corporation made not only eligibility determinations but also about what counts as living there and what documents are good enough as proof

 

Lord1

lucypei

Villagers have specifically requested cooking classes for Chinese and European food because they expect the infrastructure to bring tourists. And they did indeed get the cooking classes - there was a ceremony to certify the women who did the 2 week class, they wore traditional Tamang clothes. 

“Shareholder model” - also known as “benefit sharing” - “local” people who are categorized by the company as “project-affected” have 10% of shares reserved for them. This model was also the result of a court case - the shares are typically sold to the people that Nepali politicians are friendly with, so an alliance of people living near where the dam was being constructed demanded a share of the benefits. And presumably, the Colonial country where the hydropower company is based, in the frequent cases where the company is international, gets a very healthy chunk of the 90% of unreserved stock. 

 

People are familiar with the logics of CSR and mobilize to get their demands - efficiently deliver their demands when they know world bank officials are coming. 

 

“People-public-private-partnership” - another way to describe it.

 

pece_annotation_1524010337

ArielMejiaNJIT

This article presents how Newark is taking precautionary measures to help people affected by incoming Hurricane Sandy.  The city of Newark opened JFK Center as a shelter with the help of the Amercian Red Cross. The city also advised business and home owners how to prepare for the storm to avoid minimal damage to their properties. This display of precaution demonstrates how Newark is resilient to incoming storms during hurricane seasons.

pece_annotation_1524069926

Kathy.Thompson

Newark recommends certain safety measures before and during dangerous storms and hurricane's.  

Newark recommends to have diaster supplies handy such as: 

flashlights, batteries, first aid kit, emergency food and water, non electric can opener, medicines, cash on hand, also study shoes.

The City of Newark recommended safety measures.  

They suggest to make plans to secure your property by clearing loose and clogged rain gutters, if you can consider building a safe room, prepare emergency supply kits filled with gallons of water, food, board up windows and doors.  Trim shrubs around your house.  Have a battery operated radio and tv if possible.  Turn off propane tanks.  charge all mobile devices.  

pece_annotation_1524445112

stephanie.niev…

There were several forms of resilience int eh article. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were preparing several emergency personnel are preparing all along the coast. In addition to this, there were several shelters open, one specfically at the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center. Many of the shelters had also teamed up with Red Cross to help during the storm.

pece_annotation_1524445289

stephanie.niev…

Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Red Cross helped during this natural disaster. Also, New Jersey had sent out several sotrm warning and procedures on what to do if stuck in a troubling situation during the sotrm. New Jersey also sent out shelter locations to go to if necessary. In Newark, the public safety sent out several tips and methods to prevent any internal damage, such as flooding, in housing and what to store during the super storm.