Space, state-building and the hydraulic mission: Crafting the Mozambican state

Abstract

This article explores the role of large-scale water infrastructure in the formation of states in sub-Saharan Africa. We examine this through a focus on government agents and their shifting hydrodevelopmental visions of the state in colonial and post-colonial Mozambique. Over time, the focus, underlying principles, and goals of the hydraulic mission shifted, triggered by contextual factors and historical developments within and outside the country. We identify the making of three hydraulic paradigms, fostering different imaginaries of 'the state' and social and spatial engineering of the territory: the 'Estado Novo' (1930-1974), the socialist post-independence state-space (1974-1987) and the neoliberal state (1987-present). We then conclude by discussing how the shifting discursive justifications for infrastructure projects consolidate different state projects and link these to material re-patterning of hydrosocial territories, showing that whilst promoted as a rupture with the past, emerging projects tend to reaffirm, rather than redistribute, power and water within the country.

The legacy of large dams in the United States

“…As past decisions were a legacy to the present, current decisions will be a legacy for the future. Hence, the results of our study are also relevant to the current debate about the sustainability of new dams and reservoirs, which are being planned or built in many places around the world (Zarfl et al 2015;Crow-Miller et al 2017;Latrubesse et al 2017;Rusca et al 2019). Emerging and developing regions of the world are on the verge of starting a trajectory of heavy reliance on large dams, which present similarities to the one described here.…”

“…This triggered and justified the pursuit of iconic hydropower or largescale public irrigation projects (Molle et al 2009 ). Whilst contributing to welfare, these projects strategically worked to developing powerful hydraulic bureaucracies, and to controlling and engineering state-space (Scott 1999 ; Kaika 2006 ; Molle et al 2009 ; Wester 2009 : Rusca et al 2019 ). The Bureau of Reclamation, established in 1902 by Theodore Roosevelt, played a key role in defining and implementing the ‘hydraulic mission’ of the US.…”

“…Dam developments slowed down at the turn of the century, following increased protests in the 1990s and the publication of the report by the World Commissions on Dams (WCD Secretariat 2000 ), which claimed that their social and environmental costs outweighed their benefits. In recent years, however, a new wave of large dam development has been witnessed globally (Zarfl et al 2015 ; Crow-Miller et al 2017 ; Latrubesse et al 2017 ; Rusca et al 2019 ). Many of these new projects revolve around the promise of clean energy production and the need to secure water supply (Briscoe 2009 ; Hirsch 2010 ; Schulz and Adams 2019 ).…”

“…In this paper, we examine the legacy of dam development in the United States, by exploring how changes (in time and space) in human population, water supply and agricultural expansion have shaped each other over the past two centuries. To this end, we draw from methods and concepts of the interplay of human and water systems that have been recently developed in environmental history and political ecology (Scott 1999 ; Kaika 2006 ; Molle et al 2009 ; Wester 2009 ; Rusca et al 2019 ) as well as social-ecological systems and sociohydrology (Sivapalan et al 2012 ; Di Baldassarre et al 2015 ; Pan et al 2018 , 2020 ; Hall 2019 ; Kalantari et al 2019 ).…”

The Urban Metabolism of Waterborne Diseases: Variegated Citizenship, (Waste)Water Flows, and Climatic Variability in Maputo, Mozambique

“…The developmental vision of the colonial state was explicitly grounded on principles of racial superiority, which materialized in a segregationist spatial order (Jenkins 2000;Rusca et al 2019). Those recognized as "proper" citizens-the colonial elites and the assimilated population-were entitled to advanced technological water and sanitation services, whereas spaces of the natives were excluded (Biza et al 2021).…”