2015 Volume 21 Pages 5-21
The aim of this paper is to conceptualize the adverse impact of dam projects based on the empirical facts of postwar Japan’s experience. Applying “social structure of victimization” theory of Nobuko Iijima, this paper employs phase division in an adapted form. Consequently, five phases and three time periods of the “social impact model of dam projects in postwar Japan” are discussed; first, the phase of the planned site, second, the phase of resettlement and reconstruction of livelihood, third, the phase of the development of the reservoir area and surrounding communities, fourth, the phase of reexamination of the project, fifth, the phase of cancelation of the project.
The model demonstrates clearly the following facts: local residents will be affected for several decades once a community has been targeted as or incorporated into a project site; when residents move to a new settlement, they feel obliged to engage in reservoir community development activities on top of rebuilding their own lives; suffering for dozens of years is magnified as if the lives of the local people affected are of no value compared to the reconsidered wider social needs of the project; the multifaceted, multilayer-like damage to residents caused by being involved in argument and negotiation over compensation and reforming their own communities when a project is cancelled.
Thus, the paper concludes that dam induced relocation in postwar Japan is basically successful in terms of economic reconstruction for the relocated people, but there is a severe problem whereby the project affected people often suffer the “plundering of their lives” since the project is prolonged for such a long term.
