Reconfiguring Scale and Power: The Khong-Chi-Mun Project in Northeast Thailand

Abstract

This paper uses the case of the Khong-Chi-Mun (KCM) interbasin transfer project in northeast Thailand to explore questions of power and scale in the context of state intervention in river basins. The KCM project figures strongly in the Thai state's long-term aim of transforming its water-poor northeast region through large-scale irrigation works and agroindustrial development. The project has also become a key element in interstate negotiations over coordinated development of the Lower Mekong Basin. The early stages of the project have met with resistance in the form of both national and local Thai social movements arguing against it on social justice and ecological grounds. Proponents of the project in the Thai government are employing different scalar narratives to justify and legitimate implementation of the scheme. Scale and power are intimately related within complex environmental conflicts, and tracing their linkages through an array of actors and across a variety of scales, the approach associated with actor-network methodologies, can reveal a great deal about how power and scale are co-created.