Social Innovations as A Response to Dispossession: Community Water Management in View of Socio-Metabolic Rift in Chile

Abstract

Chile has gone through more than four decades of neoliberalism, inaugurated by the civil–military dictatorship (1973–1990). One of the central aspects of the current model is the neoliberal exploitation of natural commons such as land, water and minerals. In some territories, such as the central-north province of Petorca, the accelerated extractivism of this period has disrupted the reproduction of life cycles, leading to disruptive influences in the form of "socio-metabolic fractures". In this article we highlight aspects of this process as it relates to rural community water management. Based on literature and media analysis we first describe the case of Petorca from a political, ecological point of view. We then use the concept of institutional bricolage (ad hoc construction) to analyze qualitative interviews, allowing us to establish a more in-depth insight into the organizational structures of Petorca. Although we point to the weakening of community organization, we highlight in this article how, in a scenario of profound dispossession, as is taking place in the province of Petorca, ongoing experiences of community organization continue to emerge and challenge the impacts of the socio-metabolic rift. Thereby we shed light upon the often less visible structures of power and the processes of meaning and legitimacy within these social innovations.

Creating Transdisciplinary Teaching Spaces. Cooperation of Universities and Non-University Partners to Design Higher Education for Regional Sustainable Transition

“…To avoid romanticizing local actors, movements, or organizations, their wider context e.g., the related regimes and interplay of the formal and informal institutions are considered. As Roose [26,28] shows, the The combination of actor-centered institutionalism with critical institutionalism helps to address questions of complexity, power, and justice. To avoid romanticizing local actors, movements, or organizations, their wider context e.g., the related regimes and interplay of the formal and informal institutions are considered.…”

“…To avoid romanticizing local actors, movements, or organizations, their wider context e.g., the related regimes and interplay of the formal and informal institutions are considered. As Roose [26,28] shows, the presence of formal and informal institutions plays a significant role in the emergence of (social) innovation by building up trust and reciprocity. Cleaver [23] observes that often those formal and informal institutions are (re-)arranged according to their contexts and describes this as institutional bricolage.…”

Adaptive Capacity as Local Sustainable Development: Contextualizing and Comparing Risks and Resilience in Two Chilean Regions

“…What is known of these risks is that they have highly variable impacts, although these mostly affect lower-income groups due to their limited adaptive capacities, whether in terms of income and assets, public transfers, or their ability to influence decision-makers. For example, in the Atacama desert, the flash flooding of 2015 showed greater exposure of particular groups located in peri-urban and rural areas [113]; in Santiago, air contamination affects lower-income communities the most [114]; in Valparaiso, the lack of planning in informal settlements resulted in 10,000 homes being affected by the wildfire of 2014, mainly low-and middle-income families [115]; and in the valleys of the central and southern regions, there is a crisis in access to drinking water that affects mainly low-income farmers and their livelihoods [116][117][118]. These examples reveal the diversity of threats that are experienced, often simultaneously, across the national territory.…”

Lessons to Be Learned: Groundwater Depletion in Chile’s Ligua and Petorca Watersheds through an Interdisciplinary Approach

“…The two rivers meet at the Salinas de Pullally coastal wetland and their watersheds have similar physical-geographical characteristics [17,20,26]. They are characterized by semi-arid conditions; a predominantly pluvial (pluvio-nival), mixed regime; and an absence of glaciers in their Andean sections, which makes them vulnerable in terms of water availability [16,17,23]. Annual rainfall varies between 253 and 319 mm, increasing in the upper parts and concentrated in the austral winter (April-October) [17,22,26].…”

“…Both watersheds are characterized by agricultural fruit production [14,16,17,22,24], dominated by citrus and avocado, the agricultural expansion of which began in the 1990s [14,22,23]. Both watersheds are characterized by agricultural fruit production [14,16,17,22,24], dominated by citrus and avocado, the agricultural expansion of which began in the 1990s [14,22,23].…”