Megadams divert both water and attention away from displaced communities

Evidence

Big dams are thus diversionary in a triple sense. They divert water—and through water, land—from the powerless to the powerful. But they also divert attention, their glistening enchantments throwing into shadow unimagined communities. One recalls, in this spirit, Roy’s portrait of globalization as “like a light which shines brighter and brighter on a few people and the rest are in darkness, wiped out. They simply can’t be seen. Once you get used to not seeing something, then, slowly, it’s no longer possible to see it.” — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 485

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Roy’s metaphor of growing accustomed to not-seeing dovetails with the graft/trees piece’s theme of infrastructure that renders lives invisible — and with the slow-violence chapter on recognition being gradual.
• XREF: connects to: Colonial megafauna conservation displaced people while ignoring subsistence land degradation — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 391

Broader Connections

• Colonial megafauna conservation displaced people while ignoring subsistence land degradation #expands (0.80) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 391