ABSTRACT
While pro-dam actors may assert the benefits of a particular scheme, those opposed to it highlight overlooked impacts and forgotten complexities. Environmental and other non-governmental organizations adopt divergent definitions of sustainability, and this was evident in a number of interviews conducted within the research to explore dams, in which respondents highlighted how others did not always subscribe to the same brand of environmentalism. By highlighting the potential for reconfiguration of pro-dam storylines, the analysis developed in this book broadens contemporary understandings of the politics of dams and the storylines that surround the construction of this type of infrastructure. It is by illuminating the contested character of the concept of sustainability within the construction of contemporary hydropower projects that this book seeks to highlight a route forward for exploring the storylines advanced by other environmentalist movements. It is perhaps a twist of the pro-dam storyline of sustainability that hydroelectricity generation in the Brazilian Amazon is likely to be impacted by climate change.
