Petrol pumps and the making of modernity along the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya

Paul Hebinck
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, The Netherlands; paul.hebinck@wur.nl

Luwieke Bosma
MetaMeta Research, ’s Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; lbosma@metameta.nl

Gert Jan Veldwisch
Water Resource Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; gertjan.veldwisch@wur.nl

ABSTRACT: This paper explores how pump irrigation has evolved along the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria. Over the past two decades access to petrol pumps has allowed small-scale horticultural enterprises to start up and then transform the size, intensity and nature of their production. We analyse the spread of petrol pumps as the assimilation and wider use of a modern device along a mutated trajectory of change. We argue that it was not led by external actors but is a local and self-organised process driven by actors who negotiated interfaces between themselves and those operating at the macro level. The assimilation unfolded not as a temporally and spatially linear process but through its embeddedness in complex and dynamic social relationships that structure access to the key resources required for vegetable production. This in turn has given rise to a range of strategies in which the pumps' performance is adjusted to fit with various socially differentiated contexts.

KEYWORDS: Horticulture, farmer-led irrigation, mutant modernity, farming strategies, pump irrigation, Lake Victoria, Kenya

Critical governance problems for farmer-led irrigation: Isomorphic mimicry and capability traps

Anna Mdee
School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; a.l.mdee@leeds.ac.uk

Elizabeth Harrison
School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; e.a.harrison@sussex.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Irrigated agricultural production is viewed as key to the twin challenges of transforming agriculture and adapting to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. Farmer-led irrigation is currently not well recognised or accounted for, and the current focus on state or public-private irrigation schemes means this activity is largely occurring outside of formal governance mechanisms or is deemed illegal. How do current institutional and regulatory frameworks relate to the apparent boom in farmer-led irrigation, and how do these shape current patterns of response, support, and regulation? To answer this question, we build a conceptual understanding of water governance which draws on critiques of current institutional frameworks for water and irrigation management, specifically using the conceptual ideas of isomorphic mimicry and capability traps, and elements of a problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach. We then use three case studies from Tanzania and Malawi to illuminate three critical problems that state institutions encounter in approaching the recognition and regulation of farmer-led irrigation. In our conclusion we argue that current irrigation governance is creating capability traps for existing institutions. Where incremental and context-driven adaptation of governance is practised this can be avoided, creating better chances of effective support and regulation of farmer-led irrigation development.

KEYWORDS: Farmer-led irrigation development, innovation, governance, Tanzania, Malawi

Vegetable gardening in Burkina Faso: Drip irrigation and agroecological farming in light of the diversity of smallholders

Basile Gross
Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; basile.gross@gmail.com

Ronald Jaubert
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; ronald.jaubert@graduateinstitute.ch

ABSTRACT: Small-scale irrigated vegetable production has expanded dramatically in Burkina Faso. Its development can be divided into four periods: the colonial period with the construction of small dams; the boom in reservoir development as a response to drought and famine; the period during which private irrigation was supported; and the current period of new irrigation technologies such as drip irrigation and, to a lesser extent, agroecological vegetable gardening. Since the 1990s, vegetable gardening projects have had a limited impact and irrigation development has been led and financed mainly by farmers. This situation still prevails with current projects, which throws into question their capacity to respond to the needs of family farms. This issue is addressed in the Réo area, where an in-depth survey of family farms revealed a large diversity of situations and livelihood strategies. It became evident from the study that drip irrigation or agroecological gardening can only be adopted by a very small number of family farms. In addressing the problems of smallholders in this regard, development organisations and public policies need to consider their diversity, and adapt accordingly to farming families’ needs and capacities.

KEYWORDS: Vegetable market gardening, irrigation, development project, agroecology, smallholder, family farming, Burkina Faso, Réo

Development assemblages and collective farmer-led irrigation in the Sahel: A case study from the Lower Delta of the Senegal River

Samir El Ouaamari
AgroParisTech, Paris, France; samir.elouaamari@agroparistech.fr

Nadège Garambois
AgroParisTech, Paris, France; nadege.garambois@agroparistech.fr

Mathilde Fert
AgroParisTech, Paris, France; fert.mathilde@gmail.com

Léa Radzik
AgroParisTech, Paris, France; lea.radzik@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: In Sahelian countries, farmer-led irrigation development has contributed to the extension of irrigated areas in formerly state-led schemes, especially from the 1990s onwards. It has usually consisted of individual approaches, revealing the unequal capacities that farmers have had to develop irrigated agriculture. However, in some cases, farmers have performed collective practices geared towards achieving a more concerted and equitable management of resources. This article is centred on such collective enterprises. It is based on a case study from the delta of the Senegal River. In this region, where state agencies, donors, and investors have set the tone of irrigation development over the last decades, the concerted irrigation development led by the inhabitants of a small village (Thilène) can be considered to be a form of resistance. By drawing on the concepts of 'moral economy' and 'assemblage', and using 'comparative agriculture' methods, we situate the emergence of this collective action in order to understand who has governed it by what means or practices, and to know what have been its outcomes. We see these collective actions as an alternative irrigation development pathway to that led by the state and donors. The results highlight the contingent nature of these initiatives and the difficulties in implementing adapted policies to trigger or boost their emergence.

KEYWORDS: Irrigation, collective action, resistance, assemblage, Senegal

Irrigating Zimbabwe after land reform: The potential of farmer-led systems

Ian Scoones
ESRC STEPS Centre and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; ians@ids.ac.uk

Felix Murimbarimba
Independent researcher and farmer, Masvingo, Zimbabwe; felixmurimba@gmail.com

Jacob Mahenehene
Independent researcher and farmer, Chikombedzi, Zimbabwe; jacobmahenehene@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Farmer-led irrigation is far more extensive in Zimbabwe than realised by planners and policymakers. This paper explores the pattern of farmer-led irrigation in neighbouring post-land reform smallholder resettlement sites in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo district. Across 49 farmer-led cases, 41.3 hectares of irrigated land was identified, representing two per cent of the total land area. A combination of surveys and in-depth interviews explored uses of different water extraction and distribution technologies, alongside patterns of production, marketing, processing and labour use. In-depth case studies examined the socio-technical practices involved. Based on these data, a simple typology is proposed, differentiating homestead irrigators from aspiring and commercial irrigators. The typology is linked to patterns of investment, accumulation and social differentiation across the sites. The results are contrasted with a formal irrigation scheme and a group garden in the same area. Farmer-led irrigation is more extensive but also more differentiated, suggesting a new dynamic of agrarian change. As Zimbabwe seeks to boost agricultural production following land reform, the paper argues that farmer-led irrigation offers a complementary way forward to the current emphasis on formal schemes, although challenges of water access, environmental management and equity are highlighted.

KEYWORDS: Farmer-led irrigation, land reform, water control, socio-technical system, Zimbabwe

Modernisation and African farmer-led irrigation development: Ideology, policies and practices

Chris de Bont
Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; chris.de.bont@humangeo.su.se

Janwillem Liebrand
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands; International Development Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; janwillem.liebrand@gmail.com

Gert-Jan Veldwisch
Water Resource Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; gertjan.veldwisch@wur.nl

Philip Woodhouse
The Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; phil.woodhouse@manchester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: In both Mozambique and Tanzania farmer-led development of irrigation is widespread, yet it is little recognised in irrigation polices and is under-supported by the government. This paper explores how this situation is exacerbated by modernisation ideas in irrigation policy and professional thinking. By means of a historical review, we trace modernisation thinking in irrigation development from the colonial period onwards, and analyse how this thinking continues to play out in contemporary irrigation policies in both countries. We then examine the relationship between modernisation thinking and practices of farmer-led irrigation development, drawing on policy documents, field studies, and interviews in both countries. Based on this analysis, we argue that the nature of farmer-led development of irrigation is consistent with many of the goals identified by state agricultural modernisation programmes, but not with the means by which government and state policies envisage their achievement. As a consequence, policies and state officials tend to screen out farmers’ irrigation initiatives as not relevant to development until they are brought within state-sanctioned processes of technical design and administration.

KEYWORDS:

Viewpoint – The politics of research on farmer-managed irrigation systems in Asia: Some reflections for Africa

Janwillem Liebrand
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands; International Development Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; janwillem.liebrand@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article presents a reconstruction of the 1980sʼ research-policy debate on farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS) in Asia. Such a reconstruction yields important lessons for the role of academic researchers in the current research-policy debate on African farmer-led irrigation development (FLID). Two interrelated insights stand out: (1) academic irrigation research was (and is) produced in an institutional context that is infused with the politics of the professional tradition in irrigation, and more specifically, (2) academic knowledge on the institutional heterogeneity of farmer-organized irrigation was (and is) incompatible with how things really work in the institution of the irrigation tradition. These insights raise critical questions on the politics of academic research on FLID, whose research agenda is really pursued; what roles do academic researchers want to play, and how to make irrigation research in development more democratic?

KEYWORDS: Irrigation, knowledge, policy, politics of research, farmer-managed irrigation systems, farmer-led irrigation development

Viewpoint – A hybrid approach to statutory water law to support smallholder farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) in Sub-Saharan Africa

Barbara van Koppen
International Water Management Institute, Pretoria, South Africa; b.vankoppen@cgiar.org

Barbara Schreiner
Water Integrity Network, Berlin, Germany; and Pegasys Institute, South Africa (at the time of research); bschreiner@win-s.org

ABSTRACT: Millions of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa who are driving farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) have been turned into criminal offenders or, at least, categorically marginalised under widespread water permit systems. Under these systems, small-scale water users are obliged to apply for a permit, but very few have done so, largely because states lack the administrative capacity to inform such large numbers of people scattered across widespread rural areas with this obligation, to process large numbers of applications and enforce conditions tied to permits. Those who use water below a usually very low threshold, are exempted from this obligation, but small-scale farmers are generally above this category. This viewpoint, based on research and policy dialogues in a range of African countries, elaborates an alternative that addresses these injustices: a hybrid approach to water use authorisation. The proposed hybrid approach provides a suite of tools to legalise the water use of smallholder farmers and to overcome the colonial legacy of the side-lining of customary water law. These tools which can be combined and adjusted to suit specific contexts include: permits, targeted at, and enforced for, the relatively few high-impact users; collective permits; non-permit tools, in particular, first, general authorisations with equal or priority legal standing relative to permits and, second, the recognition of customary water law; and prioritisation.

KEYWORDS: Sub-Saharan Africa, water law, legal pluralism, decolonisation, permits, water allocation, customary water law

Viewpoint − Water Innovation for a circular economy: The contribution of grassroots actors

Rafael Ziegler
GETIDOS, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany; rziegler@uni-greifswald.de

ABSTRACT: European policy discourse on circular economy tends to focus on innovation in relation to business and especially industry. Research suggests, however, that in order to achieve successful transitions to circular economy all social actors must be considered. Institutional pluralism and a variety of modes of provision – market, public and communal – offer a framework for research on water innovation and circular economy not limited only to markets. The paper explores such a comprehensive perspective, with a focus on grassroots innovations and their contribution to circular economy. An exploratory study of three cases of such water innovation highlights the civic, communal, and nature conservation values that these innovations advance. It also points to alternative land and water use options, along with complementary practices beyond a purely efficiency-oriented focus. For innovation policy, it suggests a focus on the support of civil networks and their coordination capacities.

KEYWORDS: Circular economy, social innovation, grassroots innovation, water ethics, water innovation, European Union

The new water wars: Struggles for remunicipalisation

David A. McDonald
Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Canada; and Director of the Municipal Services Project; dm23@queensu.ca

Erik Swyngedouw
School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, UK; erik.swyngedouw@manchester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: Remunicipalisation is one of the most significant shifts in water services policy in a generation. After 30 years of privatisation, hundreds of cities around the world have taken water services back into public control, and the pace appears to be growing. There are forces that may slow or reverse this trend, however, with private water companies increasingly concerned about the impact that remunicipalisation will have on future profits, international financial institutions that remain broadly supportive of private sector participation in water services, fiscal austerity that forces local governments to abandon plans for remunicipalisation, and legal barriers. There are also diverse – even contradictory – motivations for remunicipalisation, putting into question its future as a coherent policy trend. This Special Issue seeks to advance our understanding of these broad international trends – identifying key stakeholders and investigating the nature of their support for, or opposition to, remunicipalisation – thereby shedding light on the ways in which these actors and ideas impact local and global policymaking. It looks at successes and failures in the remunicipalisation arena, with new case studies and extensive interviews with major powerbrokers in the water sector. Our hypothesis is that remunicipalisation will continue to grow in the medium term due to widespread dissatisfaction with privatisation on the part of elected officials, civil servants and citizens, but that differences within the remunicipalisation movement, combined with ongoing fiscal restraints and growing resistance from powerful multilateral actors, may make it difficult to sustain this growth without significant changes to strategy, engagement and resources, yielding useful lessons for remunicipalisation in other sectors as well.

KEYWORDS: Remunicipalisation, urban water supply, research, challenges

Legal barriers to remunicipalisation? Trade agreements and investor-state investment protection in water services

Britta Kynast
Head of Brussels Office of the Österreichischer Rechtsanwaltskammertag (Austrian Bar), Brussels, Belgium; britta.kynast@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article analyses the relevance of investment protection rules as they relate to the remunicipalisation of water services. It describes why investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is deemed to be controversial and provides case-law examples. The article focuses on treaty provisions as they relate to the process of remunicipalisation, such as the fair and equitable treatment standard and specific clauses, and highlights where future challenges might come into play, such as environmental issues, which are directly or indirectly related to water scarcity or discussions of water as a human right. The role of municipalities, with regard to both the negotiations of free trade agreements (FTAs) and actual ISDS proceedings, is described. Analysis is accompanied by concrete advice for local actors and communities, demonstrating how challenges for remunicipalisation can be addressed, with regard to both existing FTAs and future negotiations of trade agreements.

KEYWORDS:

Will the empire strike back? Powerbrokers and remunicipalisation in the water sector

David A. McDonald
Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Canada; and Director of the Municipal Services Project; dm23@queensu.ca

ABSTRACT: Literature on remunicipalisation in the water sector has focused almost entirely on the ambitions, practices and ideologies of people and organisations that are in favour of publicly owned and managed water services. By contrast, little is known about what private water companies and mainstream water organisations have to say on the subject. This paper puts forward the results of interviews with 47 such organisations, offering the first rigorous insights into what these institutions know about water remunicipalisation, why they think it is happening, and what (if any) plans they have to engage with it in the future. The results are both predictable and surprising, demonstrating a clear concern about remunicipalisation on the part of private firms but a remarkable lack of knowledge about where and why it is happening, and no obvious plans to counteract this trend beyond fighting it on a case by case basis. Multilateral institutions, NGOs and water associations insist on being 'neutral' when it comes to questions of public versus private water delivery, although this position is undermined by practices which tend to favour private sector provision. There does not appear to be any coordinated anti-remunicipalisation movement, but a lack of enthusiasm for it from influential global water organisations suggests that advocates of remunicipalisation can expect little in the way of support from 'powerbrokers' in the water sector.

KEYWORDS: Remunicipalisation, water, multilaterals, aid agencies, private companies, NGOs

The deadlock of metropolitan remunicipalisation of water services management in Barcelona

Hug March
Estudis d’Economia i Empresa & Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; hmarch@uoc.edu

Mar Grau-Satorras
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Castelldefels, Spain; mgrausat@uoc.edu

David Saurí
Departament de Geografia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; david.sauri@uab.cat

Erik Swyngedouw
School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; erik.swyngedouw@manchester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: This article chronicles the complex, meandering, contested, and path-dependent unfolding of the remunicipalisation agenda pursued by a range of political forces and social movements in Barcelona as it has developed over the past few years. The remunicipalisation of water services management debate in the city has been marked by increasingly convoluted and intricately intertwined and enmeshed institutional configurations, legal controversies, entrenched and contested political positions, and sustained social activism. The case of Barcelona’s water supply system is emblematic of the difficulties, resistances, and contradictions that open up when a long-standing status quo is challenged by the rising momentum of an oppositional agenda. The article narrates the unfolding of the controversy, demonstrating how the institutional configuration of water supply, which is organised at a metropolitan-regional level (comprising 22 municipalities and the city of Barcelona), multiplies contestations and controversies as local governments and their power coalitions respond differently to pressures and demands for remunicipalisation. In the first part of the article, we present a brief history of the private water supply system that has been in place in Barcelona since the 19th century with a particular emphasis on the complex architecture of its post-dictatorship institutional reconfiguration. The second part focuses explicitly on the making of a water controversy during the last decade when social and political demands for remunicipalisation intensified. The third part explores the present institutional, legal, and political deadlock, concluding with possible future avenues for the remunicipalisation debate (and its associated political possibilities) as well as other avenues to strengthen the metropolitan governance of water beyond the remunicipalisation debate.

KEYWORDS: Remunicipalisation, privatisation, public-private partnerships, water governance, Barcelona, Spain

The struggle for public water in Marseille, France

Susan Jane Spronk
School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Canada; susan.spronk@uottawa.ca

Emilie Sing
School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Canada; esing075@uottawa.ca

ABSTRACT: Marseille is presented here as an unsuccessful case study of remunicipalisation. While there have been a number of cases in France where water and sanitation services have been successfully returned to public control, remunicipalisation remains the exception rather than the rule. In 2013, a small group of local activists in Marseille attempted without success to cancel a concession contract with Société des Eaux de Marseille (SEM), a subsidiary of Veolia and one of the largest and most powerful water companies in the world. We argue that the contract in Marseille may be one of the hardest to break in France since water and sanitation have been delivered by Veolia since the late 19th century. Given the legal barriers and the deep influence of Veolia over Marseille’s political economy, remunicipalisation is unlikely in the absence of a major scandal related to corruption or the quality and pricing of water and sanitation services.

KEYWORDS: Urban water supply, remunicipalisation, social movements, public–private partnerships, Marseille, France

Power asymmetries and limits to eminent domain: The case of Missoula water’s municipalisation

Cory L. Mann
City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; clm327@cornell.edu

Mildred E. Warner
City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; mwarner@cornell.edu

ABSTRACT: In 2017, the City of Missoula, Montana, in the western United States, successfully used its powers of eminent domain to take ownership of its water system from The Carlyle Group, a large international private equity firm. The Missoula case provides a lens to investigate the promises and pitfalls of eminent domain as a tool for (re)municipalisation. The case study focuses on the challenges of the eminent domain (or condemnation) process, including the assessment of fair market value. Information and power asymmetries make it difficult for public actors – the mayor, judge, and Public Services Commission (PSC) – to negotiate with private owners. Rising legal costs and increasing asset value make timing of essence, but the condemnation process is often protracted. The findings suggest that while municipalities may be able to use eminent domain to retake their water supply, it is no guarantee. Success depends on the nature of the stateʼs eminent domain law, the ability to provide evidence of public value, the technical decisions of the PSC and the courts, and the political and financial support within the municipality for remunicipalisation and the eminent domain process. Increasing power asymmetries between municipalities and international private equity firms raise questions about the future of water regulation and, as costs escalate, about the ability of municipal governments to pursue eminent domain as part of a remunicipalisation strategy.

KEYWORDS: Remunicipalisation, eminent domain, private equity, water, United States

Water justice will not be televised: Moral advocacy and the struggle for transformative remunicipalisation in Jakarta

Emanuele Lobina
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), Department of International Business and Economics, University of Greenwich; e.lobina@gre.ac.uk

Vera Weghmann
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), Department of International Business and Economics, University of Greenwich; v.weghmann@greenwich.ac.uk

Marwa Semesta
Development Planning Unit, University College London; marwasemesta@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: Aiming to advance our understanding of the transformative potential of remunicipalisation, this paper looks at the uncertain and unequal struggle for water remunicipalisation in Jakarta over the last 20 years, and offers an ontological account of the discourse on the human right to water as a catalyst for progressive policy change. A first, formal definition of transformative remunicipalisation is herein offered. This is defined as an ideal type of water remunicipalisation whose institutional legitimacy rests on the moral advocacy of emancipatory insurgency and whose implementation offers concrete possibilities of progress towards emancipatory objectives. With regard to moral advocacy and collective action, the hybridisation of emancipatory discourse enables transcendence of the limitations of the Western concept of the human right to water. By drawing on cross-cultural principles like 'water as life' and the primacy of human flourishing, the proponents of transformative remunicipalisation may turn the human right to water into a powerful discursive resource responding to Southern, if not universal, logics of appropriateness. While water justice is the terrain of inevitable contestation, the tensions between the normative ideals of collective action and the practice of advocacy require the constant reinterpretation of these ideals. This is why water justice will not be televised.

KEYWORDS: Water justice, human right to water, moral advocacy, transformative remunicipalisation, Jakarta, Indonesia

Which way will the winds blow? Post-privatisation water struggles in Sofia, Bulgaria

Georgi Medarov
Bulgarian Academy of Science, Bulgaria, georgimedarov@gmail.com

David A. McDonald
Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Canada; and Director of the Municipal Services Project; dm23@queensu.ca

ABSTRACT: The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s gave rise to widespread experimentation with neoliberal policy across much of the former Soviet sphere of influence. Nowhere was this more evident than in Bulgaria which has been a hotbed of neoliberal reform since the late 1990s, including the introduction of a water concession in Sofia in 1999. This paper critically examines efforts to remunicipalise water in the city. We argue that there is widespread support for water remunicipalisation but it is highly fractured along ideological and institutional lines. Bringing water services back in house is a real possibility but a progressive outcome is far from assured, with far-right nationalists keen to make water public for their own cronyist agenda and with neoliberal forces potentially demanding a commercialised public water utility. There is another more progressive possibility, but one that will require sensitive multi-stakeholder coalition-building (including with Romani communities) and longer-term cultural shifts in public service ethos. We conclude by arguing that progressive organisations in Sofia have no choice but to start mobilising now for the kind of public water operator they want to see when the private contract with Veolia ends in 2025.

KEYWORDS: Remunicipalisation, Veolia, post-socialist, post-neoliberal, Sofia, Bulgaria

Moving beyond the commons/commodity dichotomy: The socio-political complexity of Peru’s water crisis

Karsten Paerregaard
Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden; karsten.paerregaard@globalstudies.gu.se

Astrid Oberborbeck Andersen
Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark; aoa@learning.aau.dk

ABSTRACT: How is water best managed – as a common good or a commercial product? This is the key question of this paper that serves as introduction to a special section on Peru’s water crisis. The theoretical point of departure is Karen Bakker’s (2007) discussion of water as "a commons versus a commodity" and the conceptual pitfalls and political dilemmas the dichotomy poses. The paper argues that in order to understand the social and political tensions not only in Peru but also in other countries suffering chronic and potential water shortage we must move beyond the idea that water is best managed as either a commons or a commodity. Rather, the paper suggests, we need to examine water governance as a multi-faceted and complex activity in which water exceeds the dichotomy and sometimes takes the form of commons and commodity at the same time. Unpacking the conceptual baggage of the commons/commodity dichotomy, as well as that of each term separately, the paper problematises their use in the study of Peru’s water governance. To illustrate the intricate and often unexpected ways in which water is claimed, accessed and allocated in Peru, it introduces the five studies that comprise the special section, concluding that only by providing in-depth, ethnographic descriptions of the country’s water governance can we gain insight into its socio-political complexity and propose alternatives to its water crisis.

KEYWORDS: Water crisis, water governance, commodity, commons, Peru

Designing institutions for watershed management: A case study of the Urmia Lake Restoration National Committee

Jalil Salimi
Technology Foresight Group, Department of Management, Science and Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran; j_salimi@aut.ac.ir

Reza Maknoon
Technology Foresight Group, Department of Management, Science and Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran; rmaknoon@aut.ac.ir

Sander Meijerink
Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; s.meijerink@fm.ru.nl

ABSTRACT: One of the prescriptions of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is to organise water resources management on a watershed or basin scale, which usually involves the establishment of special-purpose organisations. This paper contributes to the discussion on the functioning of these organisations and, more specifically, on the relationship between their institutional design and their performance. An in-depth case study of the Urmia Lake Restoration National Committee (ULRNC) in Iran reveals that the committee has been successful in drafting ambitious plans and policies for restoring Urmia Lake. However, there is a serious risk of implementation failure due to contradictory national policy agendas of lake restoration and agricultural development, insufficient budget allocation for realising the restoration plan, lack of provincial accountability for the spending of resources made available for the implementation of restoration measures, and potential future political instability which may lead to less attention to the restoration process.

KEYWORDS: Watershed management, river basin organisation, institutional analysis, Urmia Lake, Iran

Assembling commons and commodities: The Peruvian water law between ideology and materialisation

Astrid Oberborbeck Andersen
Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark; aoa@learning.aau.dk

ABSTRACT: The Peruvian water resources law of 2009 (Ley de Recursos Hídricos 29338) gathers contrasting – even divergent – intentions and interests; it discursively projects water to be a national common good and an economic good. The ideas behind the law connect to global currents that promote the marketisation of water rights and commodification of water services. This paper will use a historical account of water legislation in Peru as well as detailed ethnographic attention to the implementation of the water law and its infrastructure of governance in the city of Arequipa and the Quilca-Chili river basin to analyse how the law functions as an interplay between its official text and the ways state officials use it in specific encounters with users and stakeholders. Such encounters vary and have different outcomes, at times presenting openings for groups of actors to gain influence, and at other times excluding participation. A clear-cut analytical common/commodity dichotomy is of little use when trying to understand the dynamics of governance around water in present-day Arequipa and Peru. This paper suggests 'assembling' as analytic to grasp how public and private, marketised and commodified interests come together in the implementation of the law of water resources.

KEYWORDS: Water legislation, water governance, integrated water resource management, State, ethnography, Peru