Water scarcity and the exclusionary city: the struggle for water justice in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Water management dilemmas represent a unique entry point into the challenging management of metropolitan areas, as in the case of Lima (Peru). A condition of water scarcity goes beyond the mere physical insufficiency of resources, but vividly contains the inadequacy of social relations responsible for the allocation, use and conservation of water. Lima's experience demonstrates the association between investment priorities, political agendas and corruption scandals leading to selective abundances and persistent scarcities that are perpetuated in a hydrosocial territory. The production of water scarcity has been predicated upon discriminatory practices associated with the reinforcement of uneven development and environmental injustices.

Worlds apart! Environmental injustices in Mauritius, Peru and Sweden

“…They are overcrowded and difficult to access and often they lack accessibility to water, drain/sewage systems and electricity. It is estimated that almost a million residents in Lima live without access to running water (Ioris, 2016), and most of them are from the coastal desert areas. The lack of adequate basic utility services -waste collection and disposal, and in some cases even accessibility to and from alleysfurther problematise the situation for the inhabitants in locality 'Y'.…”

Linking Water Scarcity to Mental Health: Hydro–Social Interruptions in the Lake Urmia Basin, Iran

“…In this paper we examine the spatiality of nature-society relations through the notion of 'hydro-social territories' and waterscape. While naturalistic views tend to present the management of water flows as a set of technical, objective and rational decisions that can be clearly measured and defined, the hydro-social perspective foregrounds the sometimes messy, and inherently social and political nature of water as a resource [7,10,15,36], the access to and control over which is determined by broader political, economic and social conditions [9,12,37,38]. In this context, territories are not viewed as fixed spaces, but as spatially bound dynamic networks of hydro-social relations, that are constantly and interactively (re)constructed and (re)negotiated [13,14,39,40].…”

“…The process aims to achieve the materialization of the dominant hydro-social territories by controlling the societal development through the transformation of water users' beliefs, sense of belonging and identification with the community, and the creation of new relationships and ways of interacting between water users themselves and between water users and water authorities in such a way, that they would accept, internalize, and reproduce the new norms of morality, water knowledge and truths imposed by the dominant system [13,14,40,50]. Hommes et al [39], Duarte-Abadía and Boelens [42] and Rogers et al [51] for example, use the concept of governmentality to show how such mechanisms are employed by the state authorities in the case of dam-building in Turkey, in territories in Colombian highlands, and water transfer in China respectively, while Ioris [10] and Perramond [52] apply the concept of territorialization to describe similar processes in Lima's water management and New Mexico's state adjudication of water rights, respectively. Territorial governmentalization therefore creates spaces where dominant social, political and economic hierarchies are (re)established and (re)enforced by water governors on local water users, often eroding their local sovereignty.…”

“…Decisions on water distribution are usually made on a state level and may create territories of water abundance and scarcity. Territorialized water scarcity often results from agricultural development, state regulations and social relations [10] and it has indeed been recognized that water crises are produced by poor water management rather than physical water scarcity in a given territory [5,89]. The governmentalization of the hydro-social territory in the Lake Urmia basin through aggressive agricultural policies and investments into hydraulic infrastructure in the upstream areas, driven by the discourse of economic development, control over drought conditions, production of clean hydropower energy and achieving food self-sufficiency [77], resulted in territorialized water scarcity in the downstream areas and a severe degradation of the environment.…”

“…And yet, while this argument is formally correct, it also foregrounds an ontology of water primarily informed by the natural sciences and technical assumptions about ecological scarcity, one that can downplay the social and political choreographies of power that are key in defining water use, allocation and access [6]. Research has indeed illustrated how water scarcity is often not only a result of the physical shortage of water, but rather the product of complex interactions between waterflows and socio-economic and political relations [7][8][9][10][11][12]. The various actors sharing a river basin are driven by different imaginaries regarding the use of water, as well as by asymmetrical abilities to materialize those imaginaries through the use of hydraulic infrastructure [13][14][15].…”