Property, legal pluralism, and water rights: the critical analysis of water governance and the politics of recognizing “local” rights

Water and Indigenous rights: Mechanisms and pathways of recognition, representation, and redistribution

“…Few countries recognize the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples 1 in their domestic water laws, or the legitimacy of Indigenous water governance systems, and relatively little attention has been given to the ways in which these interact with or are affected by the statutory systems of states, with the exception of a small number of well-studied regions in the Americas. While there are many shortcomings in the current legal and administrative treatment of Indigenous rights, opportunities for Indigenous cultures and rights systems are growing as pressure mounts to take nonstate rights more seriously (Babidge, 2015;Boelens, Bustamante, & de Vos, 2007;Roth, Boelens, & Zwarteveen, 2015;Von Benda Beckmann, 2001). A variety of institutional options are available to recognize Indigenous water rights and a diversity of approaches are being taken by national governments, courts, Indigenous peoples and others in response to historical and contemporary inequities and discrimination in patterns of water rights distribution and participation in the institutions of water governance.…”

“…These historical matters, which go to issue of the legitimacy and justice of liberal states, give rise to claims for restitution and redistribution that are shaped by the "politics of recognition." Recognition has assumed the status of a "master concept" in understanding minority rights contests (Ivison, 2016, p. 14), it is pervasive in global water affairs (Roth et al, 2015), and is deployed frequently in Indigenous water rights strategies. Thus, the third section critically reflects on the multifaceted dimensions of this concept (Boelens et al, 2007), drawing on analyses from political science, Indigenous studies, and postcolonial scholarship.…”

Water technology, knowledge and power. Addressing them simultaneously

“…Legal pluralism applies particularly well to water since the latter is usually governed by heterogeneous rules, norms, and regulations that might or might not be state‐driven and which are never set in stone . When users mobilize their forces and fight for the State to recognize their water rights they generally want the diversity of their bundle of rights regarding access to, withdrawal, management, and control of water and of water users to be acknowledged first . Property titles are rarely the dominant access modality to water.…”

Rivers of scarcity : Utopian Water Regimes and Flows Against the Current

“…54 Commensuration (of resources, rules, rights, institutions, identities) makes precise comparisons across vast cultural distances and geographical territories possible, which facilitates governmental control and enables transactions that are fundamental to national and global markets (see also Espeland and Stevens, 1998). Commensuration does not just produce new productive and water governance relations, but also new water subjects and societies (e.g., Baviskar (2007); Espeland (1998); Zwarteveen (2015)). 55 The "unacceptable water cultures", or "bad Indians" (Assies, 2010), "radical Indians" (Hale, 2002), correspond with the "deserving poor", and the "acceptable" ones with the "underserving poor" or "good Indians", "el indio permitido" (Hale, 2004).…”