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“...move the entire
country out of its ‘developing’ status, and, by virtue of free
markets, signal the fulfillment of the democratic principles
first pursued during the Jan Andolan movement in 1990.
His remarks were met with vigorous applause, and he con-
cluded his presentation with a quote ascribed to Confucius:
“Set the goal right, but if it can’t be reached, don’t adjust
the goal. Hasten the pace.”
The topic of risk—a specific type of risk—dominated the
proceedings. A morning roundtable on the financial via-
bility of hydropower projects discussed ‘acceptable risk
allocation’ and ‘sovereign risk,’ which were the risk factors
foreign investors would have to anticipate in an environ-
ment in which their investments would not necessarily be
covered by the same legal protections they could expect at
home. Then there were slideshows on commercial risks for
domestic developers, including currency fluctuations and
market variability on fuel prices and construction mate-
rials. Finally, another presenter...”
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“...shifting its views of risk away from being subjective and
culturally-determined, and towards an understanding of
risk as objectively calculable. This process is aided and
abetted by the private financial interests and development
agencies that fund hydropower projects.
Much of the risk research today tends to focus on capi-
talism and the financial mechanisms that are spawned
to create value amidst rules and regulations that seek to
limit fraud and excessive gain. Though seemingly a far-cry
from the topic of earthquakes and hydropower, it is the
general orientation of financiers and their reliance on
models, predictability, and the data they choose to analyze
that draw our interest. The highly-rational form of risk
assessment that we witness in Nepali hydropower seems to
reflect an ascendance of financial institutions worldwide,
generally: to define risk, to suggest means for hedging risk,
and to determine how much risk the individual is respon-
sible for vis-a-vis other individuals and/or ...”
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“...analysis models
exclude those factors that cannot be calculated: reduced
water flow and the increased danger of glacial lake
outburst floods due to climate change, and the threat of
future earthquakes. If discussed, these natural events are
conceptualized like financial risks, that is, risks that can
be managed through calculation. But the seismic risk to
a potential hydropower site simply cannot be calculated.
What we are actually talking about, then, is uncertainty.
As Appadurai (2011: 524) reminds us, “uncertainty remains
outside of all financial devices and models.”
The denial of uncertainty serves an important purpose
in maintaining the promise of Nepal as a future ‘hydro-
power nation’ (Lord 2014). As with many other financial
devices, it helps to obscure the fact that those who make
a living with the financialization of risk are seldom those
who have to live with the uncertainties produced by its
ramifications. In the case of hydropower development in
Nepal, the affected communities...”
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“...Humer Foundation for Academic Talent and the European Research
Council-funded project 'Remoteness and Connectivity: Highland
Asia in the World.'
References
Adhikari, Prakash. 2011. 900MW Upper Karnali Project:
Maoist Leaders Warn Government over Contract. The
Kathmandu Post June 13. (accessed on April 29, 2017).
Appadurai, Arjun. 2011. The Ghost in the Financial
Machine. Public Culture 23 (3): 517-539.
Barnes, Douglas and Willem Floor. 1996. Rural Energy
in Developing Countries: A Challenge for Economic
Development. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment
21 (1): 497-530.
Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
------. 2006. Living in the World Risk Society. Economy and
Society 35 (3): 329-345.
Boholm, Asa. 2003. The Cultural Nature of Risk: Can There
be an Anthropology of Uncertainty? Ethnos 68 (2): 159-178...”
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