TY - JOUR

T1 - Water citizenship

T2 - Negotiating water rights and contesting water culture in the Peruvian Andes

AU - Paerregaard, Karsten

AU - Stensrud, Astrid Bredholt

AU - Andersen, Astrid Oberborbeck

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - This article examines the implementation of Peru’s new water law and discusses how it produces new forms of water citizenship. Inspired by the global paradigm of “integrated water resources management,” the law aims to include all citizens in the management of the country’s water resources by embracing a “new water culture.” We ask what forms of water citizenship emerge from the new water law and how they engage with local water practices and affect existing relations of inequality. We answer these questions ethnographically by comparing previous water legislation and how the new law currently is negotiated and contested in three localities in Peru’s southern highlands. We argue that the law creates a new water culture that views water as a substance that is measurable, quantifiable, and taxable, but that it neglects other ways of valuing water. We conclude that water citizenship emerges from the particular ways water authorities and water users define rights to access and use water, on the one hand, and obligations to contribute to the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure and pay for the use of water, on the other.

AB - This article examines the implementation of Peru’s new water law and discusses how it produces new forms of water citizenship. Inspired by the global paradigm of “integrated water resources management,” the law aims to include all citizens in the management of the country’s water resources by embracing a “new water culture.” We ask what forms of water citizenship emerge from the new water law and how they engage with local water practices and affect existing relations of inequality. We answer these questions ethnographically by comparing previous water legislation and how the new law currently is negotiated and contested in three localities in Peru’s southern highlands. We argue that the law creates a new water culture that views water as a substance that is measurable, quantifiable, and taxable, but that it neglects other ways of valuing water. We conclude that water citizenship emerges from the particular ways water authorities and water users define rights to access and use water, on the one hand, and obligations to contribute to the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure and pay for the use of water, on the other.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Water governance

KW - citizenship

KW - hegemony

KW - anthropology

KW - Peru

KW - Water

KW - anthropology

KW - Peru

KW - management

UR - https://muse.jhu.edu/article/617807/pdf

M3 - Journal article

VL - 51

SP - 198

EP - 217

JO - Latin American Research Review

JF - Latin American Research Review

SN - 0023-8791

IS - 1

ER -