Hydroterritorial Configuration and Confrontation: The Daule-Peripa Multipurpose Hydraulic Scheme in Coastal Ecuador

Abstract

There is a forceful new impetus toward mega-hydraulic projects in Latin America, which are booming but also highly controversial. They bring benefits to some social groups while many others are negatively affected. Technocratic discourses are dominant in the region; they strategically mobilize institutions, infrastructure, money, and knowledge to present particular hydrosocial territorial imaginaries-such as multipurpose dams-as natural, universal, and politically neutral. Meanwhile, affected local communities commonly envision and practice different discourses, values, and worldviews, based on contextualized notions of well-being and territoriality. Using a political ecology perspective, this article examines how the Daule-Peripa mega-hydraulic scheme-Ecuador's "hydraulic heart"-has de-and repatterned the territory, producing new hierarchical relations and unequal distribution of socioenvironmental impacts. Though political discourses have changed throughout state-centralist and neoliberal époques, governmental policies and practices have continued and renewed their defense of mega-hydraulism. In turn, affected communities and families, through everyday territorial politics, respond and aim to rearrange the hydrosocial network in order to regain control over water, land, and territorial services.

Dams and Damages. Conflicting Epistemological Frameworks and Interests Concerning “Compensation” for the Misicuni Project’s Socio-Environmental Impacts in Cochabamba, Bolivia

“…Similar to cases described by Dye [16] and Hidalgo, Boelens and Isch [58], the Misicuni compensation process was an example of top-down thinking, valuing supposed experts' knowledge over engagement with the local community within the logic of contracting experts for rapid assessments. While the Misicuni Company technicians and university consultants focused on physical size and monetary value, indigenous families were concerned with their ability to continue their livelihoods (see also [24,74]).…”

“…In repeated instances, peasants and construction workers are denied to do their say for the sake of general interest. Time and again, project officials renew their belief in an imaginary, universal, expert-planned model of "modern water management" and "rational territorial ordering" to control irregularities, correct incapacities, and subdue Andean nature and peoples' stubbornness to efficiently deliver water and energy to the urban majorities and industrial areas (e.g., [13,23,[56][57][58][59][60][61]). As the Misicuni case manifests, the urge to morally decide what is right and what is wrong comes from a desire to establish the universal substance, values, and norms of large-scale water and territorial planning expertise and from a need to legitimize the expert community's own epistemic position as neutral and apolitical, thus legitimizing decision-making and shaping water policy agendas [51,62,63].…”

Mobilizing Water Actors and Bodies of Knowledge. The Multi-Scalar Movement against the Río Grande Dam in Málaga, Spain

“…Universalizing objectivist reason and imposing technical and scientific knowledge have been central factors [2,14,30]. This drive to tame and control natural order through technical-positivist science and large-scale engineering-a universalizing phenomenon and force that is also present in other parts of the world-has been portrayed as indispensable for cities to develop and grow, and conceptualized as 'urbanizing nature' [31] (p. 276) (for comparison with similar experiences in other regions, see for instance [12,13,16,22,28,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]). For this, a range of modernist 'commensuration' mechanisms are put to work that oversimplify, standardize, and sideline the diversities and complexities intrinsic in life, to build a common metric that will make territories, livelihoods, values, meanings, and knowledge comparisons, which are manageable and governable [42] (see also the Bolivian Misicuni case, in this Special Issue, on defining 'rightful' compensation for dam damages [37]).…”

Inundaciones Políticamente Construidas. El Megaproyecto Hídrico Chone en Ecuador

“…Este es el caso de las planicies o valles de miles de cuencas hidrográficas, considerados «más valiosos» que las partes altas; o a su vez, las áreas urbanas versus las rurales. Una de las soluciones universalizadas para controlar el riesgo de inundaciones es la construcción de megaobras como embalses, cortas o desvíos fluviales en zonas rurales, ubicados generalmente aguas arriba de centros urbanos y/o centros rurales del capital (Hidalgo-Bastidas, Boelens y Isch, 2018). Tal como muestra Osti (2017) en el caso italiano, el foco de la implementación de acciones e infraestructura para prevenir el riesgo de inundaciones en estas zonas es contencioso y tiene que ver con la necesidad de encontrar «espacios rurales para ser ocupados, […], la imagen de seguridad, y la búsqueda de un balance coste/beneficio urbano-rural» (p. 266).…”