Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Pages: 396-404

Journal: Sustainable Development

Volume number: 28

Issue number: 2

ISSN: 0968-0802

eISSN: 1099-1719

Open access status: Hybrid

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1993

Publisher: Wiley

Abstract: 
In the 1950s and 1960s, dams were crucial to governmental campaigns for development, progress, and modernity in many world regions. This article focuses on the local aspects of a particular development scheme, namely, the construction of the Mequinenza Dam in Spain (1955-1964). This case study shows that dams were contested on a local level from the beginning, even within authoritarian contexts like Francoist Spain. It offers a closer look at processes of transformation and contestation in connection with the construction of dams, focusing on the actors, their points of view and arguments. It shows that the cleavages between interest groups that were later dichotomously labeled as strong supporters or opponents of the ideas connected to the dam construction were complex and shifted over time. These findings are relevant today because they show how the notion of development through dam building was controversial per se and challenged from the beginning.

Harvard Citation style: Brendel, B. (2020) Dam construction in Francoist Spain in the 1950s and 1960s: Negotiating the future and the past, Sustainable Development, 28(2), pp. 396-404. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1993

APA Citation style: Brendel, B. (2020). Dam construction in Francoist Spain in the 1950s and 1960s: Negotiating the future and the past. Sustainable Development. 28(2), 396-404. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1993