Mediated risks: the Rosia Montana displacement and a new perspective on the IRR model

The impoverishment risks and reconstruction (IRR) model is widely used in research on involuntary population displacements. This article endorses an expansion of the model to better account for how impoverishment risks are mediated through economic circumstances and through actors outside and within the displacement process. The case of the proposed Roia Montan mining project in Romania reveals that some impoverishment risks originate beyond displacement itself, and are harder to counter, while others are mitigated through local resistance and the strategic deployment of material and cultural assets. The Roia Montan displacement also shows that mediation reduces the predictability of IRR risks.