{"id":7334,"date":"2015-12-10T14:14:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T05:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/center_eng\/?p=7334"},"modified":"2018-10-22T03:36:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T03:36:43","slug":"disentangling-the-eco-politics-and-geopolitics-of-mekong-hydropower-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/2015\/12\/10\/disentangling-the-eco-politics-and-geopolitics-of-mekong-hydropower-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Disentangling the Eco-politics and Geopolitics of Mekong Hydropower Development"},"content":{"rendered":"
SNUAC Special Lecture<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Title:\u00a0Disentangling the Ecopolitics and Geopolitics of Mekong Hydropower Development<\/strong><\/h4>\n
    \n
  • Time:\u00a0Thursday, 10 December 2015, 10:00 am \u2013 12:00 pm<\/li>\n
  • Language:\u00a0Lecture will be given in English<\/li>\n
  • Venue:\u00a0Seoul National University Asia Center Rm.#303<\/li>\n
  • Presenter:\u00a0Philip Hirsch<\/strong> \/ Professor of Human Geography \/ University of Sydney<\/li>\n
  • Host:\u00a0SNUAC Southeast Asia Center<\/li>\n
  • Contact:\u00a002-880-2695 (s4091519@snu.ac.kr)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Abstract:\u00a0The Mekong River and its tributaries are currently undergoing an extensive program of dam construction, principally for hydropower.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, this program is highly political.\u00a0 The environmental politics of dam development are complex in themselves, and they have been further complicated as developers and some national governments have employed environmental discourse in support of dams as alternatives to fossil fuel power plants and as part of integrated river basin management.\u00a0 In any international river basin, hydropower development is also geo-politicized, the more so in a region with a history of conflict and distrust between the riparian states concerned. The geopolitics of damming a river that traverses six countries involves a complex set of stakeholder interests between, but also within, the countries concerned.\u00a0 As unilateral decisions to go ahead with mainstream dams unravel any semblance of truly collaborative governance on the lower part of the river, the critical position in which the Mekong River Commission (MRC) finds itself highlights the entangled nature of ecopolitical and geopolitical concerns.\u00a0 In this lecture, I will discuss the key dimensions of ecopolitics, geopolitics and their entanglements around Mekong dams. I will then consider the extent to which it is realistic for governance arrangements to disentangle them within a single riparian agency \u2013 particularly one whose members include only four out of the six riparian countries sharing the river.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Presenter Bio:<\/p>\n

    Philip Hirsch is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney. He specialises innatural resource management, rural change and the politics of environment in Southeast Asia. Phil leads the Mekong Research Group, which carries out engaged and collaborative research on a range of natural resource governance, livelihood and development themes in the Mekong region. He has been working on and in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia since the early 1980s. Phil is fluent in Thai and Lao, and also speaks and reads passable Vietnamese and some Khmer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SNUAC Special Lecture Title:\u00a0Disentangling the Ecopolitics and Geopolitics of Mekong Hydropower Development Time:\u00a0Thursday, 10 December 2015, 10:00 am \u2013 12:00 pm Language:\u00a0Lecture will be given in English Venue:\u00a0Seoul National University Asia Center Rm.#303 Presenter:\u00a0Philip Hirsch \/ Professor of Human Geography \/ University of Sydney Host:\u00a0SNUAC Southeast Asia Center Contact:\u00a002-880-2695 (s4091519@snu.ac.kr) Abstract:\u00a0The Mekong River and its tributaries are currently undergoing an extensive program of dam construction, principally for hydropower.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, this program is highly political.\u00a0 The environmental politics of dam development are complex in themselves, and they have been further complicated as developers and some national governments have employed environmental discourse in support of dams as alternatives to fossil fuel power plants and as part of integrated river basin management.\u00a0 In any international river basin, hydropower development is also geo-politicized, the more so in a region with a history of……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9817,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions\/9817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snuac.snu.ac.kr\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}