Post-Conflict Recovery, Disaster Mitigation, and Extractive Energy Development

University Of Rochester, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

Americans, like people around the world, increasingly seek innovative solutions to meet the growing demand for energy, while also minimizing anthropogenic climate impacts and reducing political conflicts at home and abroad. At the same time, the extraction of energy resources such as natural gas can paradoxically promote violence and lead to environmental disasters that halt the economic development they were designed to achieve. This project uses cultural anthropology fieldwork to explore the linkages between official efforts to control violence and nature, how energy projects and power relate to peace. The data and findings from this research will aid governments and businesses pursuing energy development projects, and the civil society organizations and academics working with them, to better understand their meanings and effects. This knowledge and awareness may help lead to more effective policies and projects that stop cycles of political violence, dehumanization, and inequality. Kristin Doughty of the University of Rochester will examine how the cultural politics of energy, risk of natural disaster, and reconciliation are intertwined within post-conflict contexts. Rwanda's Lake Kivu provides a uniquely productive site for this study because of its distinct chemical composition and its location in a place recovering from genocide. Over the past decade, while rebuilding the country in the wake of the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government has developed contracts to build industrial-scale gas-fueled power projects to extract methane from Lake Kivu. The methane extraction project has two stated aims: first, to reduce dangerous levels of unstable gasses dissolved in the lake and thus prevent it from an unpredictable, and deadly, explosion; and second, to provide much-needed power to fuel development for the region and country. The PI, who has conducted research in Rwanda since 2002, will conduct to study how people living alongside the lake experience the transformations brought about by the gas extraction project. Working closely with the Rwandan Lake Kivu Monitoring Program, the PI will collect data through participant observation, interviews, life histories, and document analysis. This research project aims to improve scientific understandings of this innovative methane extraction project. This project can help improve the effectiveness of this and other energy extraction projects and reduce their unintended negative impacts by providing long-term, empirically rich, qualitative, historicized research that captures the diverse perspectives of the people affected.