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"It was a disaster for us:" 15 years of farming in the shadow of Bumbuna Dam

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dc.contributor.authorStevick, Katherine, author
dc.contributor.authorLuna, Jessie, advisor
dc.contributor.authorRaynolds, Laura, committee member
dc.contributor.authorHausermann, Heidi, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2024-09-09T20:51:11Z
dc.date.available2024-09-09T20:51:11Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractThis thesis draws on interviews, participatory mapping, and participant observation in Kalanthuba chiefdom, Sierra Leone, to explore how Limba farmers in Kadala and Kamathor villages understand life with Bumbuna Dam 15 years after its construction. In the first chapter, I argue that the government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) and its industry partner, WeBuild, have taken Limba farmers' land and abandoned the people, leaving them to fend for themselves. Government investment in green energy has transformed villagers into what some anthropologists have termed "surplus populations," who must now scrabble for survival as historic livelihood strategies become increasing untenable. "Surplus" in this context does not imply a neo-Malthusian notion of a population explosion, but rather people who have been left in a vulnerable position half-in and half-out of capitalist economic relations, rather than becoming a fully proletarianized labor force. In the second chapter, I borrow a phrase which recurred throughout my interviews—"sitting in the dark"—to frame how Limba farmers' experience and theorize this half-in, half-out position and experience of abandonment. Villagers use "sitting in the dark" to refer to a figurative lack of education, understanding, and power as well as a literal exclusion from access to electricity. For residents of Kadala and Kamathor, I argue, darkness symbolizes not only exclusion from the material benefits of Bumbuna Dam, but also from modernity as a status with attendant material benefits. Limba leaders' attempts to gain access to electricity for their people, therefore, can be understood as a bid for inclusion in the benefits of green energy development and in the material advantages of being "modern."
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierStevick_colostate_0053N_18493.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/239151
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2020-
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.title"It was a disaster for us:" 15 years of farming in the shadow of Bumbuna Dam
dc.title.alternativeIt was a disaster for us: 15 years of farming in the shadow of Bumbuna Dam
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineSociology
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Arts (M.A.)

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