Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T02:23:58.514Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Water Governance as a Question of Justice

Politics, Rights, and Representation

from Part I - Re-Politicizing Water Allocation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2018

Rutgerd Boelens
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Tom Perreault
Affiliation:
Syracuse University, New York
Jeroen Vos
Affiliation:
Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Drawing on wider environmental justice approaches, we use this chapter to propose a conceptualization of contemporary water problems as problems of justice – problems of distribution, recognition, and political participation. We contend that doing this first of all entails the active re-politicization of water questions: teasing out and making explicit those distributional assumptions and implications of water governance solutions that tend to remain hidden in mainstream approaches because of processes of technification, naturalization or universalization. A water justice focus further needs to be anchored in a sound understanding of the specific characteristics of water as a resource, as well as of the specific social relations and norms that shape its access and control. An interdisciplinary and relational approach that sees water as simultaneously natural (material) and social is important here, one that is anchored in a contextualized understanding of water rights. We illustrate these conceptual and theoretical suggestions with evidence from India.
Type
Chapter
Information
Water Justice , pp. 43 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achterhuis, H., Boelens, R. and Zwarteveen, M. (2010). Water property relations and modern policy regimes: Neoliberal utopia and the disempowerment of collective action. In Boelens, R., Guevara, A. and Getches, D. (eds.), Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Ahlers, R. and Zwarteveen, M. (2009). The water question in feminism: Water control and gender inequities in a neo-liberal era. Gender, Place & Culture, 16(4), 409–26.Google Scholar
Aiyer, A. (2007). The allure of the transnational: Notes on some aspects of the political economy of water in India. Cultural Anthropology, 22(4), 640–58.Google Scholar
Athukorala, K. and Rajapaksa, R. (2012). Water rights and gender rights: The Sri Lanka experience. In Zwarteveen, M. Z., Ahmed, S. and Gautam, S. R. (eds.), Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia. New Delhi: Zubaan, pp. 137–60.Google Scholar
Bakker, K. (1999). The politics of hydropower: Developing the Mekong. Political Geography, 18(2), 209–32.Google Scholar
Bakker, K. (2010). Privatizing Water: Governance Failure and the World’s Urban Water Crisis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bandyopadhyay, S. (2011). Rich states, poor states: Convergence and polarisation in India. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 58(3), 414–36.Google Scholar
Baviskar, A. (ed.) (2007). Waterscapes: The Cultural Politics of a Natural Resource. New Delhi: Orient Longman.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, F. von and Benda-Beckmann, K. von (2003). Water, human rights, and legal pluralism. Water Nepal, 9/10 (1/2), 6376.Google Scholar
Benda-Beckmann, F. von, Benda-Beckmann, K. von and Griffiths, A. (eds.) (2009). Spatializing Law: An Anthropological Geography of Law in Society. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Boelens, R. and Zwarteveen, M. (2005). Prices and politics in Andean water reforms. Development and Change, 36(4), 735–58.Google Scholar
Boelens, R., Getches, D. and Guevara-Gil, A. (eds.) (2010). Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity. Washington, DC: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Castree, N. (2004). Differential geographies: Place, indigenous rights and “local” resources. Political Geography, 23, 133–67.Google Scholar
Castree, N. and Brown, B. (eds.) (2001). Social Nature: Theory, Practice, and Politics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Choudhury, P. R., Sahoo, B. C., Sandbhor, J., Paranjape, S., Joy, K. J. and Vispute, S. (2012). Water Conflicts in Odisha: A Compendium of Case Studies. Pune: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India.Google Scholar
Cullet, P., Gowlland-Gualtieri, A., Madhav, R. and Ramanathan, U. (eds.) (2010a). Water Governance in Motion: Towards Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Water Laws. Delhi: Foundation Books; Cambridge University Press India.Google Scholar
Cullet, P., Gowlland-Gualtieri, A., Madhav, R. and Ramanathan, U. (eds.) (2010b). Water Law for the Twenty-first Century: National and International Aspects of Water Law Reform in India. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Donahue, J. M. and Johnston, B. R. (eds.) (1998). Water, Culture, and Power: Local Struggles in a Global Context. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
D’Souza, R. (2008). Liberal theory, human rights and water-justice: Back to square one? Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal [online], 1, www.go.warwick.ac.uk/elj/lgd/2008_1/desouza.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 3, 107–20.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 6988.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Gleick, P. H. (2007). The Right to Water. Oakland, CA: Pacific Institute.Google Scholar
Government of India (2008). From Hariyali to Neeranchal: Report of the Technical Committee on Watershed Programmes in India. New Delhi: Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Cambridge and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (2003). The New Imperialism. Oxford, NY: Oxford Press.Google Scholar
Holifield, R. (2001). Defining environmental justice and environmental racism. Urban Geography, 22(1), 7890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holifield, R., Porter, M. and Walker, G. (2009). Spaces of environmental justice: Frameworks for critical engagement. Antipode, 41(4), 591612.Google Scholar
Islar, M. (2012). Struggles for recognition: Privatisation of water use rights of Turkish rivers. Local Environment, 17(3), 317–29.Google Scholar
Joy, K. J. and Paranjape, S. (2004). Watershed Development Review: Issues and Prospects. Bangalore: Centre for Inter-disciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), now part of ATREE.Google Scholar
Joy, K. J., Gujja, B., Paranjape, S., Goud, V. and Vispute, S. (eds.) (2008). Water Conflicts in India: A Million Revolts in the Making. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kerr, J. Pangare, G. and Pangare, V. L. (2002). Watershed Development Projects in India: An Evaluation. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, Research Report No. 127.Google Scholar
Khadka, A. K. (2010). The emergence of water as a “human right” on the world stage: Challenges and opportunities. Water Resources Development, 26(1), 3749.Google Scholar
Kulkarni, S. (2016). “Drought and debts: The plight of Bharat Mata in Marathwada,” http://scroll.in/article/808302/drought-and-debts-the-plight-of-bharat-mata-in-marathwadaGoogle Scholar
Lahiri-Dutt, K. and Wasson, R. J. (eds.) (2008). Water First: Issues and Challenges for Nations and Communities in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Lauderdale, P. (1998). Justice and equity: A critical perspective. In Boelens, R. and Davila, G. (eds.), Searching for Equity: Conceptions of Justice and Equity in Peasant Irrigation. Assen: Van Gorcum, pp. 510.Google Scholar
Lélé, S. (2004). Beyond state-community and bogus “joint”ness: Crafting institutional solutions forresource management. In M. Spoor (ed.), Globalisation, Poverty and Conflict: A Critical “Development” Reader. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 283–303.Google Scholar
Li, T. M. (2007). The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Linton, J. and Budds, J. (2014). The hydrosocial cycle: Defining and mobilizing a relational-dialectical approach to water. Geoforum, 57, 170–80.Google Scholar
Loftus, A. (2009). Rethinking political ecologies of water. Third World Quarterly, 30(5), 953–68.Google Scholar
Mehta, L. (2003). Whose scarcity? Whose property? The case of water in western India. Land Use Policy, 24, 654–63.Google Scholar
Merry, S. E. (2006). Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Molden, D. (ed.) (2007). Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. London: IWMI/Earthscan.Google Scholar
Molle, F. (2008). Nirvana concepts, narratives, and policy models: Insights from the water sector. Water Alternatives, 1(1), 131–56.Google Scholar
Mollinga, P. P. (2003). On the Waterfront: Water Distribution, Technology and Agrarian Change in a South Indian Canal Irrigation System. Hyderabad: Orient Longman.Google Scholar
Mollinga, P. P. (2008). The Rational Organisation of Dissent: Boundary Concepts, Boundary Objects and Boundary Settings in the Interdisciplinary Study of Natural Resources Management. ZEF Working Papers # 33. Bonn: Center for Development Studies.Google Scholar
Mosse, D. (2003). The Rule of Water: Statecraft, Ecology and Collective Action in South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mouffe, C. (1993). The Return of the Political. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Mouffe, C. (2005). On the Political. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Olson, E. and Sayer, A. (2009). Radical geography and its critical standpoints: Embracing the normative. Antipode, 41(1), 180–98.Google Scholar
O’Connor, M. (1994). On the misadventure of capitalist nature. In O’Connor, M. (ed.), Is Capitalism Sustainable? Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology. New York, London: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Pahl-Wostl, C., Gupta, J. and Petry, D. (2008). Governance and the global water system: A theoretical exploration. Global Governance, 14(4), 419–35.Google Scholar
Prayas. (2010). Sinchanache Pani Udyogana va Shaharana Valavinyachya Maharashtra Rajyatil Dhoranancha va Amalbajavanicha Abhyas. Pune: Resources and Livelihood Group Prayas.Google Scholar
Roth, D. and Vincent, L. (eds.) (2012). Controlling the Water: Matching Technology and Institutions in Irrigation and Water Management in India and Nepal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, D., Boelens, R. and Zwarteveen, M. (eds.) (2005). Liquid Relations: Contested Water Rights and Legal Complexity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Schlosberg, D. (2004). Reconceiving environmental justice: Global movements and political theories. Environmental Politics, 13(3), 517–40.Google Scholar
Schroeder, R., St. Martin, K., Wilson, B. and Sen, D. (2008). Third World environmental justice. Society & Natural Resources, 21, 547–55.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Sneddon, C. and Fox, C. (2008a). Struggles over dams as struggles for justice: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) and anti-dam campaigns in Thailand and Mozambique. Society & Natural Resources, 21(7), 625–40.Google Scholar
Sneddon, C. and Fox, C. (2008b). River-basin politics and the rise of ecological and transnational democracy in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa. Water Alternatives, 1(1), 6688.Google Scholar
Sneddon, C., Harris, L., Dimitrov, L. and Ozesmi, U. (2002). Contested waters: Conflict, scale, and sustainability in aquatic socioecological systems. Society & Natural Resources, 15, 663–75.Google Scholar
SOPPECOM. (2008). Water Rights as Women’s Rights? Assessing the Scope for Women’s Empowerment through Decentralised Water Governance in Maharashtra and Gujarat. SOPPECOM-Utthan-TISS, supported by International Development Research Centre, www.soppecom.org/pdf/Water-rights-and-women’s-rights-report.pdf.Google Scholar
SOPPECOM. (2010). Assessing Social and Gender Equity in the Water Sector. Pune: SOPPECOM/Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), www.soppecom.org/pdf/final_GEG1.pdf.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, V. and Kulkarni, S. (2014). Examining the emerging role of groundwater in water inequity in India. Water International, 39(2), 172–86.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, E. (1999). Modernity and hybridity: Nature, regeneracionismo, and production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89(3), 443–65.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, E. (2003). Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape 1890–1930. In Zimmerer, K. and Bassett, T. J. (eds.), Political Ecology: An Integrative Approach to Geography and Environment-Development Studies. New York: The Guildford Press, pp. 94114.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, E. and Heynen, N. (2003). Urban political ecology: Justice and the politics of scale. Antipode, 35(5), 898918.Google Scholar
Vaidyanathan, A. (2005). Water policy in India: A brief overview. Paper prepared for the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.Google Scholar
Walby, S. (2011). Sen and the measurement of justice and capabilities: A problem in theory and practice. Theory, Culture & Society, 29(1), 99118.Google Scholar
Walker, G. (2009a). Environmental justice and normative thinking. Antipode, 41 (1), 203–05.Google Scholar
Walker, G. (2009b). Beyond distribution and proximity: Exploring the multiple spatialities of environmental justice. Antipode, 41(4), 614–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, J., Wester, P. and Bolding, A. (2008). Going with the flow: River basins as the natural units for water management? Water Policy, 10(suppl. 2), 121–38.Google Scholar
Wester, P. (2008). “Shedding the waters: Institutional change and water control in the Lerma-Chapala Basin, México.” PhD Thesis, Wageningen University.Google Scholar
Williams, G. and Mawdsley, E. (2006). Postcolonial environmental justice: Government and governance in India. Geoforum, 37(5), 660–70.Google Scholar
Zwarteveen, M. (2015). “Regulating water, ordering society: Practices and politics of water governance.” Inaugural Lecture, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Zwarteveen, M., Roth, D. and Boelens, R. (2005). Water rights and legal pluralism: Beyond analysis and recognition. In Roth, D., Boelens, R. and Zwarteveen, M. (eds.), Liquid Relations: Contested Water Rights and Legal Complexity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 254–68.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×