Abstract: Over the next few years, more than 3000 hydroelectric plants will progressively invade the Balkan peninsula, with eight dams on the Albanian stretch of the Vjosa River alone and 23 so-called ‘small’ hydropower plants on its tributaries. This wave of dam building across Southeast Europe has already received much of its funding from large multilateral development banks such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). These infrastructural projects have called into play two antagonistic groupings: on the one hand, local governments supported by international funding organizations, who claim that the projects will boost the economy and provide the country with international visibility. On the other, international environmental non-governmental organizations, together with the local populations of the designated areas, who are well aware that the dams will submerge not only their homes but also the agricultural land from which they gain their livelihood. Those who oppose the ‘dam tsunami’ feel that the government, thanks to the funds being provided by multilateral development banks, is working against their best interests, they are literally and metaphorically ‘being sold down the river’. By applying van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic inventory and a detailed transitivity analysis to press releases published by the opposing factions, the aim of this paper is to outline the way in which the construal of represented participants’ identities can enable us to access their underlying value systems and to assess which cultural, ideological and political factors have influenced agency, causality and responsibility.

'Being Sold down the River': An Investigation of Conflicting Environmental Narratives in Present-Day Southeast Europe

Bronwen Hughes
2018-01-01

Abstract

Abstract: Over the next few years, more than 3000 hydroelectric plants will progressively invade the Balkan peninsula, with eight dams on the Albanian stretch of the Vjosa River alone and 23 so-called ‘small’ hydropower plants on its tributaries. This wave of dam building across Southeast Europe has already received much of its funding from large multilateral development banks such as the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). These infrastructural projects have called into play two antagonistic groupings: on the one hand, local governments supported by international funding organizations, who claim that the projects will boost the economy and provide the country with international visibility. On the other, international environmental non-governmental organizations, together with the local populations of the designated areas, who are well aware that the dams will submerge not only their homes but also the agricultural land from which they gain their livelihood. Those who oppose the ‘dam tsunami’ feel that the government, thanks to the funds being provided by multilateral development banks, is working against their best interests, they are literally and metaphorically ‘being sold down the river’. By applying van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic inventory and a detailed transitivity analysis to press releases published by the opposing factions, the aim of this paper is to outline the way in which the construal of represented participants’ identities can enable us to access their underlying value systems and to assess which cultural, ideological and political factors have influenced agency, causality and responsibility.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11367/78519
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