Social Conflict and Its Transformation in a Dam Construction Project

Focusing on Social Movement/Networks and Beneficiary-Victim Relationships

Abstract

In recent years, some of the large-scale development projects and public works, of which most were planned in “the high economic growth era, ” are suspended or cancelled after several decades of social conflicts. Through analyzing a dam construction project, this paper clarifies the community conflict process and presents an interpretive schema for “developmental problems, ” which have often occurred in the long-term planning stage. In the conflict process, social actors including residents' organizations are often seen to be opposing one another, something which this paper interprets to be a “developmental problem.” How can we grasp the dynamics of interest among the social actors?
First, we reexamine the “benefit and harm spheres” theory, which is based on functionalism and is formed in Japanese sociology in the 1980s. According to this theory, dam conflicts are considered conflicts between the upper stream of the river (jukuken), which will be submerged by the project, and the lower stream (juekiken), or conflicts between rural areas and urban areas. Second, we focus on how residents perceived the benefit and harm resulting from the project. Third, we consider social networks among the main actors.
This study shows that, with a “yosomono (outsider)” as a key-person, social networks not only caused the anti-dam movement to expand, but brought about changes in some of the residents' perception about the project and transformed the beneficiary-victim relationships in the conflict. The “interaction model” between the social movement/networks and the beneficiary-victim relationships rounds up the analysis in this paper.