It can only resolve issues of price. In dam projects the attempt through contingent valuation to reflect in monetary terms the values people hold regarding cultural heritage resources in order to set compensation levels simply sharpens political dispute. The resulting resistance movements among dam affected peoples can become more general movements of cultural resistance to hegemonic forms of discourse, debating fundamental questions of development, cultural identity and human rights. The importance of cultural heritage resources in dam projects impresses with the necessity of finding a way to valorise other forms of knowledge and other decision-making models or means. The idea of forcing all these different forms of knowledge into one single uniform calculus or idiom must be abandoned if just decisions are to be reached.
Economic analysis has a place, but it is only one place among many.
Different forms of information must make up the knowledge base upon which decisions are made because different kinds of value are at stake.