DISPLACEMENT BY DEVELOPMENT For decades, policy-makers in government, development banks and foundations, NGOs, researchers and students have struggled with the problem of how to protect people who are displaced from their homes and livelihoods by development projects. This volume addresses these concerns and explores how debates often become deadlocked between managerial and movementist perspectives. Using development ethics to determine the rights and responsibilities of various stakeholders, the authors find that displaced people must be empowered so as to share equitably in benefits rather than being victimized. They propose a governance model for development projects that would transform conflict over displacement into a more manageable collective bargaining process and would empower displaced people to achieve equitable results. This volume will be valuable for readers in a wide range of fields including ethics, development studies, politics and international relations, as well as policy-making, project management and community development. PETER PENZ is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and former Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, Canada. His publications include Consumer Sovereignty and Human Interests (1986) and Political Ecology: Global and Local (co-editor, 1998). JAY DRYDYK is Professor of Philosophy at Carleton University, President of the International Development Ethics Association, and Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. With Peter Penz he co-edited Global Justice, Global Democracy (1997). PABLO S. BOSE is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Vermont. He is currently undertaking a research project with community organizations and service providers on transportation, mobility and access issues for refugees resettled in North America, from the perspective of environmental justice.
DISPLACEMENT BY DEVELOPMENT Ethics, Rights and Responsibilities PETER PENZ, JAY DRYDYK AND PABLO S. BOSE
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: /9780521198820 2011 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Penz, G. Peter. Displacement by development: ethics, rights and responsibilities / G. Peter Penz, Jay Drydyk, Pablo S. Bose. p. cm. isbn 978-0-521-19882-0 (Hardback) 1. Economic development projects Social aspects. 2. Internally displaced persons. 3. Internally displaced persons Relocation. I. Drydyk, Jay. II. Bose, Pablo S., 1972 III. Title. hd75.8.p46 2011 362.8 dc22 2010031210 isbn 978-0-521-19882-0 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-12464-5 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To our families
Contents List of tables Acknowledgements page ix xi 1 Introduction 1 part i fundamentals 15 2 Problems of polarization 17 3 Defining displacement for and by development 41 part ii from cost benefit analysis to ethics 59 4 Cost benefit analysis and compensation 63 5 Guidelines and rights 84 6 The development ethics framework 116 part iii from values to responsibilities 153 7 Ethical outcomes 157 8 Ethical procedures 187 9 From rights to responsibilities 210 10 International responsibilities and rights regarding displacement 243 vii
viii Contents part iv realizing responsibilities 261 11 Narmada revisited 263 12 Starting points and future directions 288 Bibliography 305 Index 327
Tables Table 1.1 Central concepts page 6 Table 3.1 Forms of displacement by development 45 Table 3.2 Modes of direct displacement for development (or resettlement) 46 Table 3.3 Modes of indirect displacement by development (or resettlement) 52 Table 3.4 Forms of harm that can result from displacement 55 Table 9.1 Rights regarding displacement for development 211 Table 9.2 Some responsibilities that need to be exercised, in order to realize the four rights 213 Table 9.3 Types of agency relevant to displacement for development 214 Table 9.4 Procedural rights and the agents with corresponding responsibilities 241 Table 10.1 International rights of displaced and other project-affected people and the international agents with corresponding responsibilities 259 ix
Acknowledgements This book is the culmination of two team projects jointly entitled Ethics of Development-Induced Displacement centred at York University in Canada and headed by Peter Penz, with a partner team at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi and Jay Drydyk at Carleton University in Ottawa. Pablo S. Bose was Project Coordinator at York University until he took a position at the University of Vermont. One project received substantial funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The other project was funded by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency) and focused on displacement by development in India and, to a more limited extent, in Canada. At a crucial moment Michael Cernea, previously with the World Bank and a leading authority in the field, was instrumental in persuading Peter Penz to persist in pursuing funding for the project and was also subsequently supportive. Mention also needs to be made of crucial help in meeting the deadline for the proposal to the Shastri Institute in New Delhi. Atiya Kidwai s son was crucial in providing technical and logical assistance under high pressure and in subsequent complicated troubleshooting, when his dog had eaten an airline ticket for Peter Penz. The York team members were crucial to the overall development of the project. Two of them, Peter Vandergeest (sociology) and Pablo Idahosa (African studies), together with the then Project Coordinator, Pablo S. Bose, took charge of and edited the volume of cases (Development s Displacements: Ecologies, Economies, and Cultures at Risk, UBC Press, 2006), based on research produced by graduate researchers at York University at the time, who have since gone on to take faculty positions at various universities and positions at other organizations. Another team member, Shubhra Gururani (anthropology), raised the issue of displacement by development neglect, in relation to her study of people forced to move from the north of India into slums in New Delhi. Two team members, Darryl Reed (social science) and xi
xii Acknowledgements Wesley Cragg (philosophy), had other projects for which they had responsibilities as leaders, but were very helpful in early discussions about the direction and structure of the project. Pablo S. Bose (environmental studies), as coordinator of the project in its latter stages, was pivotal. The York component of the project was initially housed in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, but was soon transferred to the Centre for Refugee Studies, when Peter Penz became its Director. At Carleton University, it was based in the Department of Philosophy, where Jay Drydyk became Chair. The work of graduate researcher Ron Elliott in that department should be mentioned in particular; it forms the initial basis for what Drydyk developed as Chapter 5 in this volume. The project team at JNU in India consisted of Atiya Habeeb Kidwai (urban and regional planning); Kusum Chopra (economics); and M. H. Qureshi (geography). A number of studies were carried out by them and their graduate researchers, ranging from displacement by the development of new towns and ports, to displacement in relation to bonded labour. Discussions with those project colleagues, as well as these studies, have shaped the present volume. After the project was launched, former Prime Minister of India I. K. Gujral not only agreed to give the keynote address at an important project workshop in New Delhi, but also challenged us to take seriously that the issue involves a genuine dilemma for policy-makers. With respect to this volume in particular, Clive Southey, an economist at Guelph University in Canada, brought to our attention the importance of focusing on cost benefit analysis and wrote a draft of a chapter. Although in the end a different orientation was adopted for that chapter to fit the general approach of the volume, his intervention was critical to its shape. Our initial thinking about rights and duties benefited from critical discussion at conferences of the Canadian Society for the Study of Practical Ethics (CSSPE) and the International Development Ethics Association in 2002. The development ethics framework that provides a normative foundation for our approach was developed beginning in 2005 by Jay Drydyk, aided by a sabbatical research grant and travel funding from Carleton University. He benefited from detailed discussion of Chapter 6 by David Crocker. In applying this framework to the ethical dilemmas of displacement by and for development, he received helpful feedback from Des Gasper and others attending the 2005 Conference of the Human Development and Capability Association, in addition to participants in the 2005 annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Practical
Acknowledgements Ethics. His work on the disempowering accountability flaws in the Jamuna Bridge case (Chapter 8) was aided by David Crocker, A. B. Rukooko and others at a 2006 Conference of the International Development Ethics Association at Makerere University, Uganda. The chapters on Narmada and movementist perspectives on displacement were aided by constructive discussions with John R. Wood (political science) at the University of British Columbia and Ali Sauer (environmental studies) at York University. One or other of us has also had constructive discussions with Tony Oliver-Smith, Chris de Wet, Chris McDowell, Michael Cernea, Sam Pillai, Medha Patkar, Sheila Gruner, Sharlene Mollett and David Szablowski on issues of development and displacement. We are extremely grateful for their feedback and contributions. xiii