Imaginaries and the Commons: Insights From Irrigation Modernization in Valencia, Spain

Hoogesteger, Jaime; Konijnenberg, Vivian; Brackel, Lieke; Kemink, Sjoerd; Kusters, Michiel; Meester, Bas; Mehta, Anusha Sanjeev; Hart, Tjalling ‘t; Poel, Mark van der; Ommen, Pippi van; Boelens, Rutgerd; Ibor, Carles Sanchís

doi:10.5334/ijc.1216

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Their water commoning experiences are messy and power-charged processes, and "include distributive and decision-making conflicts, such as over water access or fishing grounds, and over legitimate territorial rules and authority" [61] (p. 1132). Water commoning processes are a struggle in shaping collectivity from difference and divergence, and are ordered around a resource that, if to be managed by vulnerable groups, by nature requires shared action [62][63][64][65].…”

Section: Commons Self-supply Water Commoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rooted Water Collectives in a Modernist and Neoliberal Imaginary: Threats and Perspectives for Rural Water Commons

Hofstetter,

Bolding,

Boelens

2023

Water

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Water schemes that rely on user (co-) ownership and collective action have been described in the irrigation sector for a long time. Still, interest in such forms of (co-) investment in the domestic/multiple use sector is more recent. To address the persisting issue of rural water service, (what has been coined) self-supply is proclaimed to be a (supposedly) low-cost, sustainable manner to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). User (co-) investments are to be promoted and realized through the creation of an enabling policy environment and development of, and training on, low-cost technologies through government and NGO support and private sector-steered access to such technologies. In this article, we apply the Rooted Water Collectives (RWC) framework to describe two such schemes, one in South Africa and one in Switzerland. The data collection followed an action research methodology, with the main author being involved in interventions in all three schemes. We show here that these collectives create positions of purpose within societies and that what motivates people is to help themselves and contribute to the greater good of the community. This article shows that interventions to foster and sustain such collective actions that follow a neoliberal/modernist imaginary negatively affect their viability since these collectives, through their other-than-capitalist interactions, form part of and depend on an alternative imaginary. We conclude that interventions aiming to strengthen forms of collective action can only succeed if they recognize contextuality, unequal power relationships, and grass-rooted forms of interdependence and collaboration, and actively build on and work toward such alternative, more convivial imaginaries.

show abstract

Section: Commons Self-supply Water Commoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rooted Water Collectives in a Modernist and Neoliberal Imaginary: Threats and Perspectives for Rural Water Commons

Hofstetter,

Bolding,

Boelens

2023

Water

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For analytical purposes we divide imaginaries of place into dominant (external), that is social imaginaries of place, and alternative or local imaginaries of place (Asara, 2020; Hoogesteger et al, 2023). Social imaginaries of place refer to how external actors such as bureaucrats, politicians, scientists, practitioners and other state and non-state actors give meaning to a place and how they relate to it through amongst others the design and implementation of interventions.…”

Section: Disentangling Interventions and Their Negotiation: Territori...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We complement existing analyses empirically by exploring the deep relations and interweaving between nature conservation and water interventions. Conceptually we complement existing studies through a much stronger and explicit analysis of imaginaries of place (Asara, 2020; Hoogesteger et al, 2023) and its direct and deep relation to the techniques of government that aim to create and recreate specific territorial configurations (cf. Hommes et al, 2020, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaginaries of place in territorialization processes: Transforming the Oyacachi páramos through nature conservation and water transfers in the Ecuadorian highlands

Manosalvas

Hoogesteger

Boelens

2023

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How Ecuadorian páramos are perceived has drastically changed over the last five decades. From cold, hostile, and unproductive hinterlands, páramos have changed to become areas for biodiversity conservation and ‘water towers’ that ought to be protected to provide clean and abundant water for cities and irrigation. To understand how these changing perceptions of páramos relate to interventions and their on-the-ground negotiation by local communities, we develop the notion of imaginaries of place and explore its relations to notions of governmentality and territorialization. We show how, based on changing imaginaries of what páramos are, state and non-state interventions have tried to control the Oyacachi páramos in the Northern Ecuadorian Highlands for the specific purpose of nature and water conservation. At the same time, we show that these interventions are highly contested on-the-ground. This leads to confrontations, negotiations, and a re-definition of the imaginaries of place there exist. Our analysis expounds the relevance of understanding imaginaries of place and its close relations to interventions and their negotiation.

show abstract

“…Empirically and conceptually, the messy worlds of water commons and hybrid water governance structures and practices provide many learnings for this (e.g. Dupuits et al, 2020;Flaminio et al, 2022;Hoogesteger et al, 2023c;Veldwisch et al, 2019;Venot et al, 2022;de Vos et al, 2006;Whaley, 2022).…”

Section: Conviviality and The Commonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conviviality Under Pressure of Market-Modernist Expertocracy: The Case of Water Commons in Rural Switzerland

Hofstetter,

Bolding,

Boelens

2023

International Journal of the Commons

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Citizens outside of the built-up zone in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland are selfresponsible to establish and maintain their water services. In response many independent, collective water schemes emerged in rural areas. We describe these schemes as commons, since citizens organize legal, institutional, and infrastructural aspects of water access in a collective manner. Since the late 19th century such commons serving farming households have been subsidized by the State. In this article, we develop a conviviality lens to analyze how water commons are being supported and regulated by public institutions. We show how the introduction of neoliberal policy reforms summarized under the term New Public Management (NPM) put pressure on this public support. By describing a specific project in detail, we demonstrate how the failure of a market-modernist expertocracy to recognize these commons as alternative forms of social organization negatively affects their viability. We argue that for the proliferation of these commons their complexity, networked autonomy, and rooted notions of belonging need to be recognised.

show abstract

Imaginaries and the Commons: Insights From Irrigation Modernization in Valencia, Spain

Cited by 6 publications

References 67 publications

Rooted Water Collectives in a Modernist and Neoliberal Imaginary: Threats and Perspectives for Rural Water Commons

Rooted Water Collectives in a Modernist and Neoliberal Imaginary: Threats and Perspectives for Rural Water Commons

Imaginaries of place in territorialization processes: Transforming the Oyacachi páramos through nature conservation and water transfers in the Ecuadorian highlands

Conviviality Under Pressure of Market-Modernist Expertocracy: The Case of Water Commons in Rural Switzerland

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About