Tarique Niazi poster - University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire · ˜e building of Kalabagh...
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Contesting Instrumental Knowledge With Communicative Action: Why Kalabagh Dam (Pakistan) Remains Unbuilt Sage Journals e building of Kalabagh Dam—Pakistan’s largest hydropower development project—has been stalled for decades. is article interrogates why and how this project has been grounded for so long. Deploying Habermas’s communicative action theory that critiques expert knowledge as “instrumental rationality,” this article demonstrates that the Pakistani anti-dam movement’s communicative action played the pivotal role in stalling the dam’s building. It typologizes actors, defending and opposing the dam, and documents their knowledge claims. e article contributes to the environmental movement literature by illuminating the ways in which anti-dam activists structure communicative claims, and deploy them for the public contestation of instrumental knowledge and interests. Tarique Niazi Professor Sociology
Transcript of Tarique Niazi poster - University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire · ˜e building of Kalabagh...
Contesting Instrumental Knowledge WithCommunicative Action: Why Kalabagh Dam(Pakistan) Remains Unbuilt
Sage Journals
�e building of Kalabagh Dam—Pakistan’s largest hydropower development project—has been stalled for decades. �is article interrogates why and how this project has been grounded for so long. Deploying Habermas’s communicative action theory that critiques expert knowledge as “instrumental rationality,” this article demonstrates that the Pakistani anti-dam movement’s communicative action played the pivotal role in stalling the dam’s building. It typologizes actors, defending and opposing the dam, and documents their knowledge claims. �e article contributes to the environmental movement literature by illuminating the ways in which anti-dam activists structure communicative claims, and deploy them for the public contestation of instrumental knowledge and interests.
TariqueNiaziProfessorSociology
