This paper discusses the incorporation of supra-local social structure (SLSS) analysis into social impact assessment (SIA) practice in order to afford a deeper and more complex understanding of the social production of the impacts of planned interventions. We define SLSS as the total set of political, economic, socio-cultural and ideological driving forces and external structural phenomena shaping the social vulnerability of affected communities. We advocate causal network analysis for effectively incorporating SLSS into SIA and we take the conflict over the HydroAysén project in Chilean Patagonia as an empirical case study. While previous applications have interpreted planned interventions as the root cause of impacts, this paper analyses the dialectical interaction of four elements: the SLSS, the local community, the planned intervention and its impacts. This application revealed two fundamental issues. First, on a theoretical-conceptual level, it showed the capacity of SLSS to mould the causal pathways of a project's impacts on the affected community. Second, on an applied level, it enabled identification of the elements that should be addressed to facilitate social management of the project.

本文讨论将超地方社会结构（SLSS）分析纳入社会影响评估（SIA）实践中，以便对计划产生的干预措施的社会生产产生更深，更复杂的理解。我们将SLSS定义为构成受影响社区的社会脆弱性的政治，经济，社会文化和意识形态驱动力和外部结构现象的总集合。我们提倡因果网络分析以有效地将SLSS纳入SIA中，并且我们以智利巴塔哥尼亚的HydroAysén项目的冲突为例。尽管先前的应用将计划的干预措施解释为影响的根本原因，但本文分析了四个要素的辩证互动：SLSS，当地社区，计划的干预措施及其影响。该应用程序揭示了两个基本问题。首先，从理论概念上讲，它显示了SLSS能够塑造项目对受影响社区的影响的因果路径。其次，在应用层面上，它可以确定应解决的要素，以促进项目的社会管理。