Guest Editorial

Abstract

Exploring political ecologies of water and developmentThis theme issue draws on political ecology scholarship to explore how hydrosocial relations are produced and transformed through development interventions that provide and manage water in the Global South. In the five papers that draw insights from different contexts globally, the authors examine historical and contemporary water-related development interventions to show how power is produced through water in ways that perpetuate, or even exacerbate, inequality, exclusion, and impoverishment. In doing so, the authors contest a set of important yet taken-for-granted narratives around water provision in international development. The broader ambition of the theme issue is to direct research on water-related development interventions in the Global South in new and productive ways, by showing how water and power relations intersect to shape differential access and outcomes among diverse social groups, to configure particular discourses around water management, and to produce uneven waterscapes (Linton, 2010;Loftus, 2009;Swyngedouw, 2004;. Thus, the theme issue contributes to wider theorisations of water and power, and advances the understanding of the socionatural hybridity of water, whereby flows of water are not external to power relations, but intricately enmeshed in, and reflective of, them (Swyngedouw, 2004).While existing literature has examined how people's relations with water are configured by power relations embedded within wider spatial and temporal processes, the papers here demonstrate the role that water plays in shaping such interventions and their outcomes. On the one hand, they are attentive to the ways in which water's physical properties and cultural meanings influence its management and governance (Bakker, 2003;Strang, 2004) and how society's engagements with water shape histories and subjectivities (Loftus,

The User and the Association: Neglecting Household Irrigation as Neglecting Household Well-Being in the Creation of Water Users’ Associations in the Republic of Tajikistan

“…In response, development actors sought to decentralize water governance through the creation of community-based water management organizations in rural and particularly agrarian, communities. Intended to increase water access for users, these organizations were based in the belief that local knowledge and the existence of communal understanding could be leveraged to create institutions that were responsive to users' needs, able to successfully implement agreed upon actions and resolve conflict as well as sustain practices over the long term [4,11]. As Karen Bakker writes, because "water is a flow resource whose use and health are most deeply impacted at the community level, protection of ecological and public health will only occur if communities are mobilized and enabled to govern their own resources" [23] (p. 441).…”

“…But beyond a shared requisite for water, the organizational label of "Water Users' Association" indicates very little about the qualities of would-be members, suggesting an inclusive design wherein all those who use water in pursuit of life or livelihood are eligible to participate and benefit through collective action. Grounded in dominant development theory and a belief in the ability of participatory, locally-based projects to empower without exception and equitably distribute resources, the enthusiastic introduction of WUAs has continued despite a rich body of literature arguing that these anticipated outcomes often fail to manifest [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The continued popularity of "participatory" natural resource management organizations signals that even with decades of critique, this area of study should not be seen as saturated but rather as warranting sustained attention to the variegated ways projects may perpetuate uneven power relations across the globe.…”

Deconstructing coastal sustainable development policies: towards a political ecology of coastalscapes in Vietnam

“…Whereas on the one hand these policies have been promoted in the "Global South" to foster sustainable development and participatory governance, on the other hand they have been implemented with the aim to boost institutional change, structural adjustment, neoliberalisation and privatisation inspired by the Washington Consensus (Ferguson 1990;Cornwall and Brock 2015). It is relevant to state that over the last two decades global environmental governance, the concept of sustainable development and related initiatives, have been questioned and debated by diverse social scientists who criticised the depoliticisation of environmental changes and the aims of several international development policies oriented towards the neoliberalisation of the environment and the commodification of resources such as water and land among others (Robbins 2004;Budds and Sultana 2013;Perreault et al 2015). Specifically, Bluhdorn (2013, 20-21) defined the notion of "politics of unsustainability" in relation to contemporary environmental governance and green growth by deconstructing this regime that on the one hand defend consumerist socio-economic and environmental practices that are well known to be unsustainable.…”

International Development Policies and Coastalscape Metabolism: The Case of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…In parallel, by linking these processes with international development initiatives, the branch of the Political Ecology of Development, influenced by critical and post-development studies (Escobar 1995;Adger et al 2001), seeks at critically analysing role and aims of international development organisations, the political nature and logics of their initiatives in opposition to the depoliticisation of environmental politics (Swyngedouw 2004;Budds and Sultana 2013;Zinzani 2018). Moreover, it explores how the adoption and implementation of development initiatives impact and affect socio-power relations within the society in regions of the "Global South", by focusing on resources governance, related knowledge and practices, and socio-environmental tensions (Loftus 2009;Budds and Hinojosa 2012;Zinzani 2015).…”

“…Particularly in the "Global South", many international blueprints and initiatives aimed at improving land, water or coastal governance, were promoted in the pathway towards sustainable development (Ferguson 1990;Swyngedouw 2004;Biswas 2008). However, as many critical scholars such as geographers and political ecologists point out, behind the support for sustainable development, development organisations often depoliticised their initiatives and related narratives, hiding their political nature and the contested politics and social changes that their implementation implies (Escobar 1995;Bakker 2003;Budds and Sultana 2013). It should be argued that these development initiatives often supported neoliberalisation, global capital networks and related objectives in the transformation of society-environment relations.…”