Crawford School of Public Policy

During January, RE&D’s Sango Mahanty collaborated with Cambodia-based colleagues, Sopheak Chann and Soksophea Suong, to undertake field research at Cambodia’s Lower Sesan II dam. This work contributed to an ARC Discovery Project, Rupture: nature-society transformation in mainland Southeast Asia that also involves RE&D researchers Sarah Milne, Keith Barney and Phuc Xuan To. The overall project aims to explore the implications of dramatic and interactive landscape transformations in the dynamic Mekong region.

This highly contested Cambodian dam caused the involuntary resettlement of several communities, while some villagers resisted resettlement. Like other case studies in this project, the Lower Sesan II case will hold important insights on local experiences of dramatic environmental and social disruption, how communities cope, resist and gain support through social networks, and the role of government in these processes.