Involuntary migration and resettlement is examined as a development strategy and analyzed in an intensive study of the New Halfa Scheme in eastern Sudan. New Halfa was created between 1962 and 1969 to foster economic development through large-scale irrigated agriculture and to compensate, through resettlement, 50,000 Sudanese Nubians displaced by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. As a part of the Government plan, approximately 140,000 indigenous nomads were also settled in New Halfa; the current population of over 250,000 also includes some 40,000 "unofficial" labor migrants of western Sudanese and West African origin and approximately 10,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees officially incorporated into the Scheme. This research examines the scheme as an artifact, addressing the resettlement plan, plan implementation and the internal processes that contribute to scheme character. In a descriptive and analytical method, based on interviews, site visits, project reports and archival material, the study questions the validity of planning decisions and terms of measurement and the legitimacy of assumptions that played a larger role in the evolution of the project. The research suggests that there are three sets of legitimate but conflicting claims competing for attention when forced relocation is undertaken: ideological, referring here to the belief systems manifested in the resettled communities; authoritative, reflecting the political leadership or bureaucratic administration that has a strategic and vested interest in success; and functional, concerning the physical or economic circumstance that demanded attention in the name of development. While analyzing the theoretical and empirical relationships between those claims, the study concludes that there are options to coercive development strategies and that those options have important implications for the evolution of development projects involving resettlement. The ability of affected groups to renegotiate their futures, based on locally-held and generally respected voice and authority, is proposed as the variable most crucial to the establishment of the communal interest needed for real success in development strategies that are predicated on forcibly imposed change.
