Hydrosocial Territories and Water Equity

Theory, Governance, and Sites of Struggle

Rutgerd Boelens, Ben Crow, Jaime Hoogesteger, Flora E. Lu, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos, Rutgerd Boelens, Ben Crow, Jaime Hoogesteger, Flora E. Lu, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351973649
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Bringing together a multidisciplinary set of scholars and diverse case studies from across the globe, this book explores the management, governance, and understandings around water, a key element in the assemblage of hydrosocial territories. Hydrosocial territories are spatial configurations of people, institutions, water flows, hydraulic technology and the biophysical environment that revolve around the control of water. Territorial politics finds expression in encounters of diverse actors with divergent spatial and political–geographical interests; as a result, water (in)justice and (in)equity are embedded in these socio-ecological contexts. The territory-building projections and strategies compete, superimpose and align to strengthen specific water-control claims of various interests. As a result, actors continuously recompose the territory's hydraulic grid, cultural reference frames, and political–economic relationships. Using a political ecology focus, the different contributions to this book explore territorial struggles, demonstrating that these contestations are not merely skirmishes over natural resources, but battles over meaning, norms, knowledge, identity, authority and discourses.

The articles in this book were originally published in the journal Water International.

Introduction: interweaving water struggles, the making of territory and social justice

Jaime Hoogesteger^a, Jeroen Vos^a, Rutgerd Boelens^b, Ben Crow^c, Flora Lu^d and Erik Swyngedouw^e

^aDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, the Netherlands; ^bCEDLA, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; ^cSociology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA; ^dDepartment of Environmental Studies and Provost of College Nine and College Ten, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA; ^eSchool of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, UK

This edited book seeks to contribute to the understanding and theorization of the hydrosocial relations and processes that shape water governance and its outcomes in terms of water justice, equity and sustainability. Its 25 chapters bring together new and earlier published articles, in particular those that have been published in two special issues of the journal Water International: ‘Towards Equitable Water Governance’ (Vol. 39 (2), 2014) and ‘Hydrosocial Territories: A Political Ecology Perspective’ (Vol. 41 (1), 2016). All these chapters closely relate to the abovementioned themes through review and original research articles focusing on specific case studies, their analysis and theorization. These chapters offer a rich array of interdisciplinary approaches that interpret the divergent realities and outcomes of water governance. Many of the contributions also point out the challenges and opportunities for advancing more inclusive, democratic and equitable forms of water governance (Boelens et al., 2014; Goff and Crow, 2014). An underlying premise of the chapters is that water governance entails deeply contested political process (Lu, 2012; Perreault, 2014; Zwarteveen and Boelens, 2014; Swyngedouw and Williams, 2016). Therefore, we examine water governance as the processes that shape ‘how organization, decisions, order and rule are achieved in heterogeneous and highly differentiated societies’ (Bridge and Perreault, 2009, p. 476). In doing so, we acknowledge that water governance reflects and projects social, economic, administrative and political power through decisions about the design, manipulation and control of water, reflected in different forms of resource allocation, use, development and management.

The chapters of the special issue ‘Towards Equitable Water Governance’ focus on understanding these relations and finding ways forward in advancing democracy, equity and justice in the water sector. In water policies, stakeholder participation is often advocated as ‘the’ means to advance democracy and justice. From this perspective, participation is often conceptualized as a tool that can help solve different policy problems through reducing conflict, increasing the knowledge base and improving the legitimacy and efficacy of policies, among others. Participation is seen as a means to empower and give voice to groups that have often been excluded from policy processes. Nonetheless, as many contributions in this book show, many mechanisms that have been designed to increase participation of stakeholders – such as the acknowledgement of legal pluralism and politics of recognition in water governance – have played mere lip service to the principles of democratic decision-making, and moreover, have become mechanisms to streamline decision-making for more ‘effective’ (often top-down) policy implementation (Sze et al., 2009). Taken a step further, participation can become an instrument to advance and legitimize the de-politicization of water governance through the establishment of a so-called even playing field that neutralizes dissent by means of the co-optation of stakeholders and the development of foreclosed consensual modes of policy making that operate in a setting of generally agreed objectives (such as sustainability, consensus building and good governance) that do not question vested positions and interests (Swyngedouw, 2011).

Although under liberal premises, civil society is often portrayed as a homogenously constituted democratic force in which (all) individuals can fend for their interests, the cases show clearly that different groups in this ‘civil society’ have different power to influence water governance (Hoogesteger and Wester, 2015; Mehta et al., 2012). Peasant and other marginalized water users are mostly excluded from decision-making processes, because they are either not considered legitimate participants (Boelens, 2015) or because their lack of required knowledge, skills and resources curtails their capacity to influence the outcomes of the decision-making processes (Turnhout et al., 2010). Therefore, top-down policies to include stakeholders rarely mark the transformation of existing inequities, deep-seated resentment, socio-environmental conflicts and sometimes violent encounter. In such contexts, the strategies of social protest, alliance building and networking on the part of the excluded stakeholders form the basis for the advancement of emergent forms of inclusion, equity and justice in water governance (Hoogesteger and Verzijl, 2015). The fact that through these struggles powerful, vested interests such as state institutions, large corporations and landlords are contested and challenged forms the basis for a re-negotiation of water distribution, its allocation and management. These struggles also challenge the legitimacy of formal authorities and dominant discourses and practices. Resistance and struggle are dynamic processes that bring about changes that can materialize in the form of amended legal terms, new institutional practices, new policies, different decision-makers and/or the transformation of water flows. As many of the chapters show, grassroots struggles for water stand at the core of the advancement of more just and equitable forms of water governance.

Water governance is about how nature, technology and the social are entwined and intrinsically interrelated (Linton and Budds, 2014; Meehan 2013). Through their actions, people are strongly involved in the everyday production and reproduction of the society and environment they live in – although not necessarily in the ways they foresee, plan or desire (Winner, 1986). Here, power relationships shape water flows, and vice versa. This is clearly manifested in how water is distributed and used in river basins, where and to whom water flows are directed, how and by whom water use systems are designed and managed and how whole hydrological cycles are transformed by human interventions. Therefore, a fundamental question is how to conceptualize boundaries between ‘nature’ and ‘society’, how the contents of – and interlinkages among – particular natural, social and technological elements are established, by which actors and with what interests and consequences.

It is precisely this question that underlies the basic inquiry of the special issue ‘Hydrosocial Territories: A Political Ecology Perspective’. The fundamental point of departure for this special issue is the recognition that water is not only a fluid that flows through a territory, but rather that water is quintessentially territorial. It not only flows through geographical spaces and places; through its passage it shapes them. Where and how water flows – either naturally or through human-made technologies such as pipes and canals – determines where people live, how food production takes place, where industrial production is done, how landscapes are organized, what kind of livelihoods strategies develop, and what kind of power structures emerge for its control. To capture and better understand these interrelationships between water, nature, space, technology and society, the notion of hydrosocial territories is defined by Boelens et al. (2016, p. 2) as:

the contested imaginary and socio-environmental materialization of a spatially bound multi-scalar network in which humans, water flows, ecological relations, hydraulic infrastructure, financial means, legal-administrative arrangements and cultural institutions and practices are interactively defined, aligned and mobilized through epistemological belief systems, political hierarchies and naturalizing discourses

Territories, although often considered natural, are actively produced through the interactions between society, technology and nature. The cultural and historical origins that shape hydrosocial territories, as well as the social institutions and technologies that (re)produce or challenge and transform them, thus need to be understood. As many of the chapters show, the state and its associated institutions have played a central role in defining and ordering a specific notion and coupled materiality of hydrosocial territories.

The notion that water is the property of a nation state, imbued with the power to order its flows as it deems necessary for its development, is intrinsically territorial. This assertion, commonly imbricated with state policies that promote the firm involvement of (trans)national capitalist enterprises and the workings of market forces, has laid the basis for a very specific form of water resource development in most countries around the world (cf. Bakker, 2010; Boelens et al., 2015; Boelens et al., 2014; Perreault, 2014). A consequence is that those poised as the legitimate and central heirs and decision-makers over water allocations – governing rules and rights in water management – are an alliance of neoliberal market-based and state legal, administrative and institutional structures and actors. This alliance has laid the basis for the construction of large-scale infrastructure for the utilization of water ‘for the greater good of the nation’ and its transnational positioning. This intrinsically political notion is nonetheless claimed as objective and neutral by its proponents and beneficiaries while it continuously violates alternative (often local) notions of hydrosocial territorial ordering. These violations of alternative notions of water governance often go hand in hand with the dislocation of local powers, authorities, institutions and established water allocation, distribution and right systems; dislocations that entail severe implications in terms of socio-environmental justice and equity.

Yet, local populations are not passive in the face of new hydrosocial territorial ordering. Through struggles, protests and the creation of alliances and networks, existing and alternative hydrosocial territories are defended and recreated in the battlefield of territorial pluralism, one in which water technologies, resources and the flow of water itself are constantly negotiated and transformed at multiple scales and in different arenas of contestation (Swyngedouw and Williams, 2016; Vos and Hinojosa, 2016). In this context, in which power differences are often large and persistent, water justice is often hard to find; yet it is in the day-to-day water battles in which vested powers are challenged that the seeds for change are sown, providing the hope that at different scales and through the commitment and perseverance of those who struggle for justice, equity and inclusive forms of water governance; struggles that we as academics bring to light through documentation, analysis and dissemination.

Structure and content of the book

The book is organized in to three parts that elaborate on the themes addressed earlier: 1) Theories of the Hydrosocial and Water Equity, 2) Water Governance and 3) Hydrosocial Struggles.

Part 1: Theories of the Hydrosocial and Water Equity brings together four theoretical chapters that lay the conceptual foundations that have inspired and informed many of the remaining chapters. In Chapter 2, Margreet Zwarteveen and Rutgerd Boelens provide a framework for understanding water problems as problems of justice. They make a call for explicitly accepting water problems as implicitly contested and recognizing that water justice is embedded and specific to historical and socio-cultural contexts relating it not only to questions of distribution, but also to cultural recognition, political participation and the integrity of ecosystems. In Chapter 3, Rutgerd Boelens, Jaime Hoogesteger, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos and Philippus Wester define and explore hydrosocial territories as spatial configurations of people, institutions, water flows, hydraulic technology and the biophysical environment that revolve around the control of water. Using a political ecology approach, they argue that territorial struggles go beyond struggles over natural resources as they involve disputes over meaning, norms, knowledge, imaginaries, identity, authority and discourses. In Chapter 4, Tom Perreault critically reviews literatures related to the concepts of water and hydrosocial relations; water governance and spatial scale; and equity, justice and rights. He argues that ecological governance and environmental justice can be addressed only by viewing water and society as simultaneously social and natural; issues of democratization, human welfare and ecological conditions must inform the institutional arrangements for governing water. In Chapter 5, Matthew Goff and Ben Crow examine the ideas of equity in household water and argue that the dominant focus on improving the potability of water has muted attention to the wider consideration of domestic water and its impact on livelihoods and poverty.

Part 2: Water Governance bundles eight case study contributions that deal with issues of water governance, its implementation and the often contested outcomes on the ground. In Chapter 6, Jean Carlo Rodríguez-de-Francisco and Rutgerd Boelens explore how payment for environmental services (PES) approaches envision, design and constitute new hydrosocial territories by reconfiguring local water control. Two cases from the Ecuadorian highlands are used to clarify how PES implementation weakens local hydrosocial territories in favor of dominant interests. In Chapter 7, Cecilia Saldías, Rutgerd Boelens, Kai Wegerich and Stijn Speelman analyze water allocation practices in peasant communities of the Bolivian inter-Andean valleys. They show how historical claims, organizational capacity, resource availability and geographical position and infrastructure influence current water allocation. They argue that examining the historical background and context-based conceptualizations of space, place and water system development are crucial to understanding local management practices and informing water policies. In Chapter 8, Veena Srinivasan and Seema Kulkarni use two groundwater case studies from India – one agricultural (Kukdi) and one urban (Chennai) – to demonstrate how gaps in planning, design and policy exacerbate inequity. They suggest that better monitoring, inter-agency coordination and rethinking water entitlements and norms are needed. In Chapter 9, Brian Dill and Ben Crow show that for residents in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, hauling water is particularly difficult in the informal settlements that cover significant portions of both cities. They show that this inequality between rich and poor is rooted in the segregation of colonial rule and is sustained by the continuing injustice of land policies and the multiple complications involved with upgrading urban settlements. In Chapter 10, Rebecca McMillan, Susan Spronk and Calais Caswell argue that the technical water committees in Venezuela are an example of co-production of public service delivery between state and citizen. They show how this experiment in urban planning promotes participation as empowerment, because the committees are part of a wider political agenda, engage citizens in a broader process of social change, promote rethinking of the concept of citizenship and have thus far avoided elite capture. In Chapter 11, Catherine Tucker explores the decade-long process by which village-level water committees established a reserve in 2002 to protect communal mountain springs in the Montaña Camapara region of Honduras. In so doing, she considers the conditions under which shared dependence on water resources may motivate cooperation and foster equitable access to water in the face of difficult challenges posed by conflicts over land and water right claims and degradation of the resource. In Chapter 12, Sarah Romano argues that the effectiveness of discourses of ownership, autonomy and state roles and responsibilities in the water sector are essential in supporting water committees’ goals of political inclusion and legal recognition in Nicaragua. The case demonstrates how discourses ‘from below’ can have a democratizing effect on water governance by h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction: interweaving water struggles, the making of territory and social justice
• Part 1 Theories of the hydrosocial and water equity
• Part 2 Water governance
• Part 3 Hydrosocial struggles
• Index