Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity

Rutgerd Boelens; David Getches; Armando Guevara-Gil

ISBN 10: 1844076768 / ISBN 13: 9781844076765

Edité par Earthscan, 2010

A propos de cet article

Hardcover, xvii + 366 pages, NOT ex-library. Book is clean and bright with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Gentle handling wear only. Issued without a dust jacket. -- This book explores the deep and often conflict-ridden relationships between water rights, political power, and cultural identity. It argues that mainstream approaches to water management, particularly the widely promoted model of Integrated Water Resources Management, tend to ignore or actively undermine the complex local water rights systems developed by indigenous, peasant, and traditional communities over long periods of time. The contributors show how water is not simply a productive resource to be allocated efficiently, but a fundamental element of territorial control, social organisation, and cultural meaning. The volume pays special attention to the frequent clash between formal statutory water laws imposed by the state and longstanding customary practices that govern water distribution and use. Many chapters examine how these official legal frameworks often serve to dispossess rural and indigenous populations of their historic water rights, frequently in the name of modernisation, efficiency, or environmental protection. The book gives considerable space to the concept of legal pluralism, illustrating how different systems of water rights exist simultaneously and often compete with one another. It also explores how water rights become closely tied to collective identity, territorial claims, and political resistance. Drawing heavily on detailed case studies, primarily from the Andean region (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile) but also including examples from other parts of the world (comparative studies from North America and Europe), the authors document how marginalised communities organise to defend their water rights and challenge dominant models of water governance, including privatisation and centralised bureaucratic control. The book makes a sustained argument for recognising and supporting "water rights from below" rather than imposing uniform solutions from above. It stands as a substantial critique of conventional water policy and a significant contribution to the understanding of the political ecology of water.

N° de réf. du vendeur 012408

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity
• Éditeur: Earthscan
• Date de parution: 2010
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1844076768
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781844076765
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: Very Good

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Water is not only a source of life and culture. It is also a source of power, conflicting interests and identity battles. Rights to materially access, culturally organize and politically control water resources are poorly understood by mainstream scientific approaches and hardly addressed by current normative frameworks. These issues become even more challenging when law and policy-makers and dominant power groups try to grasp, contain and handle them in multicultural societies. The struggles over the uses, meanings and appropriation of water are especially well-illustrated in Andean communities and local water systems of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as in Native American communities in south-western USA.

The problem is that throughout history, these nation-states have attempted to 'civilize' and bring into the mainstream the different cultures and peoples within their borders instead of understanding 'context' and harnessing the strengths and potentials of diversity. This book examines the multi-scale struggles for cultural justice and socio-economic re-distribution that arise as Latin American communities and user federations seek access to water resources and decision-making power regarding their control and management. It is set in the dynamic context of unequal, globalizing power relations, politics of scale and identity, environmental encroachment and the increasing presence of extractive industries that are creating additional pressures on local livelihoods.

While much of the focus of the book is on the Andean Region, a number of comparative chapters are also included. These address issues such as water rights and defence strategies in neighbouring countries and those of Native American people in the southern USA, as well as state reform and multi-culturalism across Latin and Native America and the use of international standards in struggles for indigenous water rights. This book shows that, against all odds, people are actively contesting neoliberal globalization and water power plays. In doing so, they construct new, hybrid water rights systems, livelihoods, cultures and hydro-political networks, and dynamically challenge the mainstream powers and politics.

À propos de l?auteur

Rutgerd Boelens is a researcher with Wageningen University, The Netherlands, coordinator of the South American programs Water Law and Indigenous Rights (WALIR) and Concertacion. In books, articles and films, he has widely published on the linkages between water rights, cultures, policies and power relations.

David H. Getches focused most of his academic and legal career on the rights of native peoples and on water rights in the United States. Since 2003 he has been Dean of the University of Colorado Law School and he holds the title of Raphael J. Moses Professor of Natural Resources Law.

Armando Guevara-Gil is a Law Professor at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Lima. His main fields are Law and Anthropology, History of Law, and Law & Development. He served as the national coordinator of the Water Law and Indigenous Rights Project in Peru (WALIR), headed by Wageningen University and the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC).