Experiences of slow violence in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia is explored in a new bilingual photo book led by York researchers.
“This photo book offers a rare, insider perspective on the profound changes brought by hydropower development in two mountain communities of Lao Cai province, Vietnam,” said Nga Dao, the project’s principal investigator.
Through striking images and personal narratives, residents reveal how the loss of farmland, forced resettlement, and environmental restrictions have disrupted livelihoods, cultural traditions, and social ties—impacts that ripple across generations.
Photovoice participants from the project’s two case study villages received training in several aspects of photography and composition from a professional photographer. The book, Hydropower and Intergenerational Impacts in Ban Den and Seo My Ty villages, Lao Cai province, is the result of two years of documenting their lives in rural Vietnam.
Created through a participatory process, the collection moves beyond surface-level modernization to uncover hidden costs: economic hardship, cultural erosion, and weakened community bonds. “More than a visual record, it is a testament to resilience, memory, and the power of storytelling from within,” she said.
The Slow Violence and Water (in)justice: Feminist Political Ecologies of Intergenerational Struggles in the Mekong Region project, led by Nga Dao (Social Science) and Vanessa Lamb (Social Science) at York University, includes faculty and student team members from Vietnam Thailand and Canada. The project explores the processes, benefits and uneven impacts and benefits of transformations in Southeast Asia's Mekong Region as a type of "slow violence" that emphasizes time and generation in analysis. It is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For more information on the project can be accessed at this link.