Participatory Geography and Dam Removals: Towards a New Paradigm in Environmental Research

As many dams are reaching the end of their functional life and concerns over their safety and ecological impact become cause of great concern for communities, river restoration through dam removal becomes an increasingly common remediation plan. Although monitoring efforts for specific ecological impacts have occurred for some dam removal projects, long-term, comprehensive monitoring data for many projects has not occurred. The contribution of community involvement to scientific monitoring efforts has become increasingly popular in recent years and participation in these projects has been shown to improve awareness of local ecological issues as well as democratize the generation of scientific knowledge. However, dam removal has not yet engaged participatory research. In order to examine both topics through a critical physical geographic lens, I reviewed peer-reviewed journal articles on both topics. Data was analyzed using a Foucauldian approach to explore how understanding perceptions of these topics can be used to determine parameters for participatory monitoring of future dam removal projects. Discursive practices revealed the asymmetrical relationship between power and knowledge generation and how it reinforces hegemonic epistemologies. These findings reveal the challenges and opportunities of using participatory monitoring for dam removal projects and offer a potential framework for inclusion of community members in the generation of knowledge in dam removal monitoring.