Rescaling and Reordering Nature–Society Relations: The Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Dam and Laos–Thailand Electricity Networks

This article seeks to interrogate these links, showing how the hydrological flows of the XBF River are now transformed by regional power grids that are heavily shaped by fluctuations in energy demand in Thailand. The transformations of the XBF River dramatically illustrate a core principle of political ecology: Social power shapes nature–society relations and in doing so remakes ecologies. In narrating the transformation of the XBF, authors also seek to extend political ecology insights to the Thai and Greater Mekong electricity system as a highly regulated production and consumption network that embodies metabolic relationships to, and remakes, nature. NT2, authors argue, represents a shift in how that electricity system has been ordered, with knock-on effects for the relationship of Thai energy users to distant ecologies.