A New House or a New Life? : A Case Study of Involuntary Resettlement in the South-North Water Transfer Project in Henan China

Abstract

In the last decades involuntary resettlement has forced millions of people to leave their homes all over the world. There are in many cases a direct link between resettlement and impoverishment. China has in the last decades done a tremendous effort to improve their resettlement policies and lift the impoverished resettled population out of poverty. The purpose of this paper is to research the experiences of resettlers who have been moved in the South-North Water Transfer Resettlement Project in Henan, China. The South-North Water Transfer is a water infrastructure project, which will, by constructing three canals, transfer water from the south to the north of China. In this project more than 300 000 people will be relocated. The research is based on qualitative data from observations and interviews in Xichuan County and Zhengzhou in Henan, China. Further, texts from government web pages have also been used.

Findings from interviews and observations show that the South-North Water Transfer resettlers in Henan, who are at an early stage in the resettlement, say that their lives have not been changed to any greater extent. The resettlers have been provided with new housings of a good quality. Most resettlers have lost land, which is a risk of impoverishment. This thesis also shows that there is a direct link between the distance relocated and whether or not the resettlers feel that their life has changed. This is the first empirical work to explore the resettlement process caused by the South-North Water Transfer in Henan.