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Currents of water commons research: A review

Sergio Villamayor-Tomas
Department of Political Science and Public Law, Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologia Ambientales, ICTA-UAB, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Valles, España; sergio.villamayor@uab.cat

Paulina Raniecka
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; p.raniecka@vu.nl

Jampel Dell’Angelo
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; jampel.dellangelo@vu.nl

ABSTRACT: Since Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009, research on the commons, and particularly on water commons, has expanded significantly in volume and theoretical diversity. This paper offers a scoping review of 61 'water commons' studies to identify theoretical strands and ways in which water commons are currently operationalised and problematised. First, the review reflects on the evolution of water commons research from the Ostromian – that is, more institutional – approach, towards one that is more critical, relational and social constructivist. The paper shows that recent contributions have the potential for both constituting an inflection point and expanding the Ostromian tradition. Second, the review identifies four interconnected ways of operationalising water commons, that is, as a resource, an organisation, a community and a process. It highlights a shift away from purely resource- and right-centric understandings towards more complex sociopolitical conceptualisations. Also, water commons are predominantly framed as responses to market- and state-driven governance failures, though warnings against romanticisation remind us of their limits in addressing large-scale challenges and internal power asymmetries. The analysis further identifies two major debates – on the role of the state and on the relationship between rights-based approaches and relational commons governance – and two emerging threads concerning commons endurance under external pressures and the ambivalent role of social movements. Overall, the review enriches our understanding of the literature on water commons beyond the ‘institutional vs. critical studies’ dichotomy, and sheds new light on the diverse ways in which scholars have empirically worked with, and on, water commons.

KEYWORDS: Water, commons, Ostrom, critical theory, commoning, definitions, governance