DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Social Consequences of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

作为目前世界上正在建设的五大开发项目之一，南部非洲的莱索托高地水项目（LHWP）对受该项目影响的人们的生活产生了重大影响。来自加州大学欧文分校的一位文化人类学家将通过性别关系的视角来研究该项目在莱索托的影响。发展项目对妇女的不同影响（通常是消极影响）促使人们对“妇女参与发展”、“妇女与发展”和“性别与发展”等各种传统进行研究。这些注释描述了理解和研究妇女在社会和发展中的重要性的不同方法。采用女权主义政治生态学方法，学生将进行多地点民族志研究，涉及三个大坝遗址在不同的建设和实施阶段（重新安置，受影响和未受影响），通过两波结构化调查和半结构化访谈来检查受项目影响的人口正在经历的发展方式。将审查性别、阶级、年龄和其他社会经济和社会文化类别，以调查低收入家庭计划对社区和家庭的社会后果。所创造的新知识对于发展规划人员以及研究流域项目和南部非洲的学生将是有价值的。此外，该项目还有助于培养一名年轻的社会科学家。

One of the five largest development projects currently under construction in the world today, the Lesotho Highlands water Project (LHWP) in Southern Africa has a major impact on the lives of people affected by the project. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist from the University of California-Irvine will study the effects of the project in Lesotho through the lens of gender relations. The differential impact (usually negative) of development projects on women has given rise to studies in the various traditions of "Women in Development", "Women and Development" and "Gender and Development". These glosses describe different approaches to understanding and examining women's significance in society and in development. Employing a feminist political ecology approach, the student will conduct multi-site ethnographic research involving three dam sites at different stages of construction and implementation (resettled, impacted, and non impacted), with two waves of structured surveys and semi-structured interviews to examine the ways project-affected populations are experiencing development. Gender, class, age, and other socio-economic and socio-cultural categories will be examined to investigate the social consequences of the LHWP on communities and households. The new knowledge to be created will be valuable to development planners as well as to students of river basin projects and of southern Africa. In addition the project helps to train a young social scientist.