40 results on '"Jaime Hoogesteger"'
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2. River Commoning and the State: A Cross‐Country Analysis of River Defense Collectives
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Jaime Hoogesteger, Diana Suhardiman, Rutgerd Boelens, Fabio de Castro, Bibiana Duarte-Abadía, Juan Pablo Hidalgo-Bastidas, Janwillem Liebrand, Nuria Hernández-Mora, Kanokwan Manorom, Gert Jan Veldwisch, and Jeroen Vos
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grassroots scalar politics ,river commoning ,state–citizens relations ,water collectives ,water justice movements ,Political science (General) ,JA1-92 - Abstract
Grassroots initiatives that aim to defend, protect, or restore rivers and riverine environments have proliferated around the world in the last three decades. Some of the most emblematic initiatives are anti-dam and anti-mining movements that have been framed, by and large, as civil society versus the state movements. In this article, we aim to bring nuance to such framings by analyzing broader and diverse river-commoning initiatives and the state–citizens relations that underlie them. To study these relations we build on notions of communality, grassroots scalar politics, rooted water collectives, and water justice movements, which we use to analyze several collective practices, initiatives, and movements that aim to protect rivers in Thailand, Spain, Ecuador, and Mozambique. The analysis of these cases shows the myriad ways in which river collectives engage with different manifestations of the state at multiple scales. As we show, while some collectives strategically remain unnoticed, others actively seek and create diverse spaces of engagement with like-minded citizen initiatives, supportive non-governmental organizations, and state actors. Through these relations, alliances are made and political space is sought to advance river commoning initiatives. This leads to a variety of context-specific multi-scalar state–citizens relations and river commoning processes in water governance arenas.
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- 2023
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3. Hydropower Politics in Northeast India: Dam Development Contestations, Electoral Politics and Power Reconfigurations in Sikkim
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Rinchu Doma Dukpa, Jaime Hoogesteger, Gert Jan Veldwisch, and Rutgerd Boelens
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hydropower development ,movements ,hydro-electro politics ,power ,Sikkim ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 ,Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes ,TD201-500 - Abstract
Around the world, the development of large dams has been increasingly contested. India is no exception and has seen the mobilisation of powerful domestic and transnational socio-environmental movements against dams over more than four decades. In this context, the State of Sikkim in northeast India has been entangled in prolonged hydropower development conflicts since the late 1990s. This article analyses these conflictive entanglements between the Government of India, the State Government of Sikkim, power companies and Sikkim’s autochthonous tribe, the Lepchas. It zooms in on the period of 2011–2017, which saw an abrupt escalation of the conflicts to analyse the messy, deeply political and often unpredictable and contradictory world of dam construction and its contestations. Our analysis is informed by the power cube framework developed by John Gaventa. Our analysis shows how hydropower development is deeply intertwined with local patronage relationships. We show how local elections bring out dam conflict and the operation of power into the open, sometimes leading to abrupt and unexpected switches in positions in relation to hydropower development. We show that these switches should be seen not only as “strategic electoral tactics” but also and importantly as contentious political struggles that (re)configure power in the region. We show how in this process, powerful political actors continuously seek to stabilise power relations among the governing and the governed, choreographing a specific socio-hydraulic order that stretches way beyond simple pro- and anti-dam actors and coalitions as it is embedded in deep hydro(-electro) politics and power plays.
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- 2024
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4. Linking Institutions for Collective Action to Agrarian Change: Insights from Transformations in an Irrigation Community, Central Mexico
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Jaime Hoogesteger and Federico Rivara
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commons ,land and water accumulation ,rural transformations ,migration ,ejido ,mexico ,Political institutions and public administration (General) ,JF20-2112 - Abstract
In commons studies, broad attention has been given to understanding how and why natural resource management systems function through institutions for collective action. However, little attention has been given to how agrarian change impacts institutions for collective action and related resource access. In this paper we address this gap through the case study of a groundwater irrigation community in the northeast of the state of Guanajuato, Central Mexico. In a context of neoliberally induced agrarian change, over the last two and a half decades, in this community a few producers with capital acquired through international migration and remittances have accumulated access to land and water. This accumulation has gone hand in hand with the transformation of production to the high value agro-export crop asparagus and the creation of a cooperative for the collective production and marketization of the crop. We show that the irrigation community has proven institutionally robust in the midst of agrarian change because it was able to adapt to, and enable, this productive transformation. At the same time, we also show that this process led to the accumulation of access to land and water by a few irrigators and that the irrigation community is now composed of a very different and smaller group of users/producers. These results imply that processes of agrarian change, transformations in access to productive resources, and the adaptation and resilience of institutions for collective action are deeply intertwined and interdependent.
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- 2023
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5. ‘Squeezing Out’ the Nile Delta’s Drainage Water to Irrigate Egypt’s Desert Land
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Mohamed Tawfik, Jaime Hoogesteger, Moustafa Moussa, and Petra Hellegers
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Nile Delta ,desert land reclamation ,informal water access ,wastewater ,drainage water reuse ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 ,Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes ,TD201-500 - Abstract
Egypt’s quota of Nile River water has been constant since the 1950s, despite the continual agricultural land expansion. To facilitate land reclamation, Egypt has reallocated Nile water from downstream users, mostly smallholders in the ‘old lands’ of the Delta. As water demands have grown, more attention has gone to the reuse of waste/drainage water as a reliable source for irrigated agriculture in the “old lands”. Recently, new mega plants for drainage water treatment have been built to promote reclamation of ‘new lands’ in desert-front governorates located outside the Nile Delta. Through these plants and the related water conveyance infrastructure, drainage water from the ‘old lands’ is now being collected, treated, and reallocated to these newly reclaimed areas. This article scrutinizes this transformation of access to drainage water, examining who benefits and what implications it holds for smallholder farmers in the old lands. The analysis suggests that waste/drainage water reclamation schemes do not tap into unused water but actually risk depriving smallholders in the Nile Delta of water access. It argues that more attention should be given to existing informal reuse arrangements and that smallholders’ access to water is guaranteed in light of new drainage water reuse projects.
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- 2023
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6. Imaginaries and the Commons: Insights From Irrigation Modernization in Valencia, Spain
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Jaime Hoogesteger, Vivian Konijnenberg, Lieke Brackel, Sjoerd Kemink, Michiel Kusters, Bas Meester, Anusha Sanjeev Mehta, Tjalling ‘t Hart, Mark van der Poel, Pippi van Ommen, Rutgerd Boelens, and Carles Sanchis-Ibor
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alternative imaginaries ,water assemblages ,commons ,irrigators’ communities ,drip irrigation ,spain ,Political institutions and public administration (General) ,JF20-2112 - Abstract
In this article we introduce the notion of imaginaries as a conceptual entry to study and better understand how and why commons re-create and transform. We do so by first exploring imaginaries as assemblages, and second by analytically dividing imaginaries in dominant and alternative imaginaries. While the former refer to how people imagine and live their social existence around built expectations and their underlying notions, the latter refers to imaginaries that critique instituted society and through it create ‘germs’ that can lead to transformation. Through this lens we analyze contestations that have emerged around the introduction of drip irrigation in two irrigation communities in the Valencia Region of Spain. These two case studies (Carcaixent and Potries) show how, among the commons, alternative imaginaries are challenging the dominant imaginaries of drip irrigation. We show how these alternative imaginaries result from a different way of assembling irrigation and the social, cultural, material, and economic relations around it. These insights, we argue, open up avenues that allow us to better understand the imaginary creations that reproduce a specific existing order, as well as the germ(s) that can lead to transformations and change.
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- 2023
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7. Socio-Material Bricolage: (Co)Shaping of Irrigation Institutions and Infrastructures
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Adnan Mirhanoğlu, Gül Özerol, Jaime Hoogesteger, Pieter Van den Broeck, and Maarten Loopmans
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drip irrigation ,infrastructure ,irrigation governance ,socio-material bricolage ,turkey ,Political institutions and public administration (General) ,JF20-2112 - Abstract
Drip irrigation is often considered a technological solution to increase water use efficiency and crop productivity. However, all too often, its social and institutional entanglements are ignored. This paper treats drip irrigation as a socio-material assemblage and discusses the social and institutional changes triggered by the introduction of drip irrigation infrastructure in Ağlasun, a rural town located in the southwest of Turkey. Through an ethnographic study, we investigate how the switch from surface irrigation to drip irrigation entails an interaction of institutional re-arrangements, material infrastructures and strategizing actors to reshuffle the operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructures, water distribution rules and water pricing. Expanding the concept of institutional bricolage to socio-material bricolage, we offer a nuanced understanding of how material infrastructures and institutions are mutually shaped by individual and collective agency.
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- 2023
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8. Promise and paradox: A critical sociohydrological perspective on small-scale managed aquifer recharge
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Britt Basel, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Petra Hellegers
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managed aquifer recharge (MAR) ,water sowing and harvesting ,groundwater recharge ,sociohydrology ,community-based adaptation ,Nature-based Solution ,Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering ,TD1-1066 - Abstract
Small-scale managed aquifer recharge (MAR) has significant potential as a bottom-up, community-based adaptation solution for increasing local groundwater availability and reducing the experience of drought for small-holder agriculturalists and rural populations. Using a suite of low-tech and low-cost techniques, small-scale MAR increases the infiltration of surface water runoff to replenish groundwater and deliver a suite of societal and ecosystem benefits. While the technique is hydrologically promising, populations may not act, implementation may not be permitted, interventions may not be effective for the population in question, or unexpected consequences (paradoxes) may result. For small-scale MAR to effectively reduce the experience of drought, it is imperative to unravel how such interventions play out within the complexity of the sociohydrological system in which they are implemented. Building on previous conceptualizations of the sociohydrological system, we apply the lens of political ecology to conceptualize the interplay between biophysical, climate, and social systems. Additionally, we explore considerations, feedbacks, and potential paradoxes in the uptake, implementation, and effectiveness of small-scale MAR interventions. We show that within the parameters of climate trends, small-scale MAR may serve to increase the functionality of ecosystems and reduce the impact of climate extremes, while protecting livelihoods and supporting society. In a positive feedback loop, small-scale MAR may both reduce the likelihood of experiencing drought while simultaneously increasing the ability and likelihood of the population to cope with or further avoid drought. Paradoxes and negative feedback processes, however, must be avoided. Specific factors, and how such factors interplay, will be different in each context where small-scale MAR is implemented. Conceptualizing the sociohydrological system in which small-scale MAR is implemented, including explicitly accounting for climate trends and using a power-sensitive approach, allows us to avoid overestimating or oversimplifying small-scale MAR as a solution, while supporting practical and effective implementation.
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- 2022
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9. Shifting Waters: The Challenges of Transitioning from Freshwater to Treated Wastewater Irrigation in the Northern Jordan Valley
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Mohamed Hassan Tawfik, Hadeel Al-Zawaidah, Jaime Hoogesteger, Maha Al-Zu’bi, Petra Hellegers, Javier Mateo-Sagasta, and Amgad Elmahdi
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Northern Jordan Valley ,wastewater ,reuse ,water reallocation ,water user association ,water policy ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 ,Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes ,TD201-500 - Abstract
Jordan’s water scarcity prompted a national plan whereby treated wastewater is utilized to amend agricultural irrigation water so as to reallocate freshwater to urban/domestic uses. The policy, however, has engendered farmers’ resistance in the Northern Jordan Valley (NJV), causing a stalemate in putting new infrastructure into operation. This research investigated the socio-economic causes of farmer resistance and contestation, and examined the government’s institutional approach to overcome the challenges. We found that the perceived risks of wastewater reuse such as salinization and restrictions from international markets figure prominently in the farmers resistance. As yet, farmers have managed to avoid the shift to treated wastewater use by using the political agency of elite farmers who control the Water Users Associations. These same farmers have adopted informal water access practices to overcome freshwater shortages. At the same time, small producers who don’t have possibilities to access extra water and with less political clout seem more willing to irrigate with treated wastewater. We conclude that understanding the heterogeneous context in which the envisioned wastewater users operate is key to predicting and solving conflicts that arise in treated wastewater reuse projects.
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- 2023
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10. GESTIÓN DEL AGUA SUBTERRÁNEA DE USO AGRÍCOLA: LOS RETOS DE LA SUSTENTABILIDAD SOCIO-AMBIENTAL Y LA EQUIDAD
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Jaime Hoogesteger and Philippus Wester
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agua subterránea ,gestión del agua ,regulación ,despojo ,equidad ,Geography (General) ,G1-922 - Abstract
El agua subterránea es el sustento de millones de personas que viven en ámbitos rurales y urbanos en el mundo. Basados en la teoría sobre el acceso, en este artículo presentamos cómo el desarrollo del uso de las aguas subterráneas ha aportado al bienestar humano en diversos lugares del mundo; y cómo su uso intensivo está causado problemas de salud y acceso al agua en poblaciones vulnerables debido a la sobreexplotación de los acuíferos. Mostramos las dificultades que enfrentan los esquemas de regulación estatal para controlar el uso del agua subterránea y presentamos los modestos logros de otros enfoques de gobernabilidad dirigidos a resolver los problemas existentes con las aguas subterráneas. De igual manera evidenciamos los actuales procesos de acumulación y despojo del agua que se dan a raíz de la anarquía en la gestión del agua. Para estudiar estos procesos se propone un marco de análisis con base en el estudio de los territorios hidrosociales, la economía política del agua subterránea y las esferas de control que definen el acceso a la misma. Este análisis destaca los desafíos que presenta idear políticas y modos de gobernanza que contribuyan a la sostenibilidad social y ambiental del agua subterránea.
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- 2018
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11. Mapping the expansion of berry greenhouses onto Michoacán’s ejido lands, México
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Sarah Hartman, Michelle Farfán, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Paolo D’Odorico
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machine learning ,greenhouse agriculture ,remote sensing ,mapping ,agro-export ,land tenure ,Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering ,TD1-1066 ,Environmental sciences ,GE1-350 ,Science ,Physics ,QC1-999 - Abstract
Agricultural transformations have significantly contributed to the global market’s year-round supply of capital-intensive greenhouse-grown crops. For instance, berry production in México is increasingly relying on greenhouse systems to meet the growing demand of international markets, particularly in the USA. It is still unclear to what extent these transformations are related to land tenure, as data on greenhouse distribution often do not exist, are incomplete, or lack spatial resolution. This paper presents a support vector machine learning algorithm tool to map greenhouse expansion using satellite images. The tool is applied to the major berry-growing region of Michoacán, México. Here agricultural areas are transforming to satisfy foreign demand for berries, altering local land and water resource use patterns. We use this tool and a unique land tenure dataset to investigate (a) the spatially explicit extent to which high-input commercial agriculture (mainly the production of berries) has expanded in this region since 1989; and (b) the extent to which smallholder ( ejidal ) land has been incorporated into the highly capitalized agro-export sector. We combine a national dataset on ejidal land (which includes both communal and parcel land) with geospatial agricultural data to quantify the land-use changes in six municipalities in the berry-growing region of Michoacán between 1989 and 2021. We find that the development of the greenhouse berry boom can be quantified and shown with spatially-explicit detail, growing from zero to over 9,500 ha over the period, using almost one-quarter of all regional agricultural land in 2020. We further find that the capital-intensive market-oriented berry industry has been widely integrated into smallholder ejidal lands, so much so that over half of greenhouses are found there.
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- 2022
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12. The ostrich politics of groundwater development and neoliberal regulation in Mexico
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Jaime Hoogesteger
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Groundwater ,water policy ,water markets ,water grabbing ,agrarian policies ,Mexico ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 - Abstract
In this article I present the politics that spurred groundwater development in Central and Northern Mexico between 1930 and 1990, and analyse the working/effects of the neoliberal groundwater policies that were implemented in the country since the 1990s. I first present, based on an analysis of the Comarca Lagunera and the state of Guanajuato, the socio-economic, political and institutional dynamics that shaped groundwater development between 1930 and 1990, with a special focus on how with state support large commercial farmers and small ejidatarios developed groundwater irrigation. My analysis shows how the actors involved in groundwater development, just like ostriches, stuck their head in the sand, oblivious to aquifer overdraft and its environmental consequences. Then I present how – since the 1990s – neoliberal groundwater regulation policies have worked out on the ground opening the doors to regulatory capture and groundwater accumulation through capital, oblivious to sustained aquifer overdraft, a shrinking peasant ejido sector, increased rural outmigration and the health threat of toxic concentration of Fluoride and Arsenic in many groundwater dependent areas. This analysis raises serious doubts about the capacity of – often (inter)nationally lauded – neoliberally inspired groundwater policies to contribute to socio-environmental sustainability and equity.
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- 2018
13. Contractual Reciprocity and the Re-Making of Community Hydrosocial Territories: The Case of La Chimba in the Ecuadorian páramos
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Rossana Manosalvas, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Rutgerd Boelens
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cultural politics ,contractual reciprocity ,community territories ,hydrosocial territories ,collective action ,governance ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 ,Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes ,TD201-500 - Abstract
In the Andes, indigenous communities are being increasingly besieged because their páramos act as water providers for cities and irrigation systems downstream. This has led indigenous communities to protect their hydrosocial territories from external actors and re-create them to contest these threats. In this context, we analyse how the Kayambi community of La Chimba in the northern Sierra of Ecuador has managed to defend and secure its hydrosocial territory through the creation and re-creation of its indigenous identity and networks and related cultural politics that find expression in different forms of contractual reciprocity. As a result, the community hydrosocial territory (re)-creation itself is a weapon of resistance, a decolonising process where rural communities continuously can produce their own forms of development. This is particularly important in a context where governments in the region are relying on extractivism and in the explotation of indigenous territories.
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- 2021
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14. Old wine in new bottles: The adaptive capacity of the hydraulic mission in Ecuador
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Jeroen F. Warner, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Juan Pablo Hidalgo
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Hydraulic mission ,hydropower dams ,buen vivir/sumak kawsay ,Ecuador ,Hydraulic engineering ,TC1-978 - Abstract
Despite a widely embraced ecological turn and strident critique of megastructures in the 1990s, construction of large infrastructure has been reignited worldwide. While Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and River Basin Management (RBM) have at least discursively held sway as the dominant paradigm in water management since the late 1990s, we argue that the 'hydraulic mission' never really went away and has in some places energetically re-emerged. The development discourse that justified many dams in the past is now supplemented by a new set of appealing justifiers. With the help of the case of Ecuador we show that the hegemonic project of the hydraulic mission has a great discursive adaptive capacity and a new set of allies. The rise of the BRICS (especially China), South-South cooperation and private investors provides non-traditional sources of funding, making the construction of hydraulic infrastructure less dependent on Western conditionalities. The resulting governance picture highlights the disconnect between the still widely embraced policy discourse of IWRM/RBM and the drivers and practices of the hydraulic mission; questioning what value international calls for 'good water governance' have in the midst of new discourses, broader transnational political projects and the powerful dam-building alliances that underlie them.
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- 2017
15. Review of Watering the Revolution: An Environmental and Technological History of Agrarian Reform in Mexico, by Mikael D. Wolfe
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Jaime Hoogesteger
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Geography (General) ,G1-922 - Abstract
'Watering the Revolution: An Environmental and Technological History of Agrarian Reform in Mexico', by Mikael D. Wolfe, Duke University Press, 2017.
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- 2018
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16. Normative structures, collaboration and conflict in irrigation; a case study of the Pillaro North Canal Irrigation System, Ecuadorian Highlands
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Jaime Hoogesteger
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irrigation ,collective action ,normative structures ,water user associations ,water governance ,Political institutions and public administration (General) ,JF20-2112 - Abstract
This paper analyzes conflict and collaboration and their relation to normative structures based on a case study of the history and external interventions of the Píllaro North Canal Irrigation System in the Ecuadorian Highlands. It does so by using Ostrom’s framework for analyzing the sustainability of socio-ecological systems together with an analysis of the normative structures that define the governance systems through which the interactions in irrigation systems are mediated. I argue that the external interventions by the state and NGOs imposed a new governance system that undermined the existing normative structures and related organizations, leading to internal conflicts. The case study suggests that a reformulation of irrigation policies and state intervention methodologies in user managed supra-community irrigation systems in the Andes could lead to higher levels of cooperation.
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- 2015
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17. Communality in farmer managed irrigation systems: Insights from Spain, Ecuador, Cambodia and Mozambique
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Jaime Hoogesteger, Alex Bolding, Carles Sanchis-Ibor, Gert Jan Veldwisch, Jean-Philippe Venot, Jeroen Vos, Rutgerd Boelens, Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs, Usages (UMR G-EAU), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) (BRGM)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-AgroParisTech-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), and ARTES (FGw)
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[SDV.SA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences ,06.- Garantizar la disponibilidad y la gestión sostenible del agua y el saneamiento para todos ,MOZAMBIQUE ,WASS ,Community ,EQUATEUR ,CAMBODGE ,Water Resources Management ,Political agency ,Animal Science and Zoology ,Water collectives ,[SDU.STU.HY]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Hydrology ,Collective action ,Agronomy and Crop Science ,Irrigation ,ESPAGNE - Abstract
CONTEXT: Worldwide farmer managed irrigation systems have provided crops for food, feed and the market for centuries. From high mountain environments to river valleys and deltas, in all continents people have organized to construct, use, maintain, transform and sustain irrigated agro-ecosystems. In this context it is important to better understand how these systems are sustained. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this contribution is to explore and theorize through which strategies and mechanisms irrigators are able to sustain these systems in a constantly changing socio-environmental context. METHODS: The study is based on ethnographic qualitative research in four areas where farmer managed irrigation systems are sustained by irrigators (Valencia region, Spain; Ecuadorian highlands; Cambodian Mekong delta; and Tsangano district, Mozambique). Research consisted of interviews and observations in these areas and was supported by a literature review of what has been published about these systems. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results show that farmer managed irrigation systems are dynamic systems that constantly transform but that are sustained in these changes through what we term ‘communality’. We introduce this term to point out three interrelated elements that stand at the basis of farmer managed irrigation systems sustenance, namely: commons, community and polity. Analysis of the four case studies points out that these three elements are mobilized differently by farmers depending on their socio-environmental context. We show that the mobilization of these different elements amidst internal and external challenges and conflicts, forms the basis for the longevity and sustainability of collectively managed irrigation systems. SIGNIFICANCE: In the literature on farmer managed irrigation systems collective action has been portrayed as the main pillar that sustains these systems. This contribution challenges this notion by showing that irrigation systems are sustained by a combination of individual actions, collective practices, normative frameworks and organizational forms; a sense of community; and the development of political agency (polity). Recognizing that these elements come together as site specific hybrids opens new avenues of inquiry to better understand the sustainability of farmer managed irrigation systems.
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- 2023
18. Hydrochemical controls on arsenic contamination and its health risks in the Comarca Lagunera region (Mexico) : Implications of the scientific evidence for public health policy
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Jürgen, Mahlknecht, Ismael, Aguilar-Barajas, Paulina, Farias, Peter S K, Knappett, Juan Antonio, Torres-Martínez, Jaime, Hoogesteger, René H, Lara, Ricardo A, Ramírez-Mendoza, and Abrahan, Mora
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Environmental Engineering ,Public policy ,Drinking Water ,Health Policy ,WASS ,Pollution ,Water Resources Management ,Arsenic ,Health risk assessment ,Comarca Lagunera region ,Humans ,Environmental Chemistry ,Child ,Groundwater ,Waste Management and Disposal ,Aquifer overexploitation ,Mexico ,Water Pollutants, Chemical ,Environmental Monitoring - Abstract
Nearly half of the world's urban population depends on aquifers for drinking water. These are increasingly vulnerable to pollution and overexploitation. Besides anthropogenic sources, pollutants such as arsenic (As) are also geogenic and their concentrations have, in some cases, been increased by groundwater pumping. Almost 40 % of Mexico's population relies on groundwater for drinking water purposes; much the aquifers in semi-arid and arid central and northern Mexico is contaminated by As. These are agricultural regions where irrigation water is primarily provided from intenstive pumping of the aquifers leading to long-standing declines in the water table. The focus of this study is the main aquifer within the Comarca Lagunera region in Northern Mexico. Although the scientific evidence demonstrates that health effects are associated with long-term exposure to elevated As concentrations, this knowledge has not yielded effective groundwater development and public health policy. A multidisciplinary approach – including the evaluation of geochemistry, human health risk and development and public health policy - was used to provide a current account of these links. The dissolved As concentrations measured exceeded the corresponding World Health Organization guideline for drinking water in 90 % of the sampled wells; for the population drinking this water, the estimated probability of presenting non-carcinogenic health effects was >90 %, and the lifetime risk of developing cancer ranged from 0.5 to 61 cases in 10,000 children and 0.2 to 33 cases in 10,000 adults. The results suggest that insufficient policy responses are due to a complex and dysfunctional groundwater governance framework that compromises the economic, social and environmental sustainability of this region. These findings may valuable to other regions with similar settings that need to design and enact better informed, science-based policies that recognize the value of a more sustainable use of groundwater resources and a healthier population.
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- 2023
19. Imaginaries of place in territorialization processes: Transforming the Oyacachi páramos through nature conservation and water transfers in the Ecuadorian highlands
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Rossana Manosalvas, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Rutgerd Boelens
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Public Administration ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Environmental Science (miscellaneous) - Abstract
How Ecuadorian páramos are perceived has drastically changed over the last five decades. From cold, hostile, and unproductive hinterlands, páramos have changed to become areas for biodiversity conservation and ‘water towers’ that ought to be protected to provide clean and abundant water for cities and irrigation. To understand how these changing perceptions of páramos relate to interventions and their on-the-ground negotiation by local communities, we develop the notion of imaginaries of place and explore its relations to notions of governmentality and territorialization. We show how, based on changing imaginaries of what páramos are, state and non-state interventions have tried to control the Oyacachi páramos in the Northern Ecuadorian Highlands for the specific purpose of nature and water conservation. At the same time, we show that these interventions are highly contested on-the-ground. This leads to confrontations, negotiations, and a re-definition of the imaginaries of place there exist. Our analysis expounds the relevance of understanding imaginaries of place and its close relations to interventions and their negotiation.
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- 2023
20. Governmentalities, hydrosocial territories & recognition politics: The making of objects and subjects for climate change adaptation in Ecuador
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Megan Mills-Novoa, Jaime Hoogesteger, Rutgerd Boelens, Jeroen Vos, and ARTES (FGw)
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Sociology and Political Science ,05 social sciences ,Participation ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,0507 social and economic geography ,Climate change adaptation ,Climate change ,WASS ,021107 urban & regional planning ,Citizen journalism ,Rationality ,Environmental ethics ,02 engineering and technology ,Hydrosocial territories ,Making-of ,Water Resources Management ,Governmentality ,Intervention (law) ,Politics ,Political science ,Ecuador ,Recognition politics ,Adaptation (computer science) ,050703 geography - Abstract
Adaptation to climate change has become a major policy and project focus for donors and governments globally. In this article, we provide insight into how adaptation projects mobilize distinct imaginaries and knowledge claims that create territories for intervention (the objects) as well as targeted populations (the subjects) to sustain them. Drawing on two emblematic climate change adaptation projects in Ecuador, we show how these objects and subjects are created through a knowledge production process that (a) creates a discursive climate change rationale; (b) sidesteps uncertainty related to climate change impacts; (c) fosters a circular citational practice that (self-)reinforces the project's expert knowledge; and (d) makes complex social variables commensurable based on the project's rationality, interests, and quantifiable indicators. The emerging hydrosocial territories ‘in need of intervention’ require subjects that inhabit, produce and reproduce these territories, in accordance with specific climate change discourses and practices. To manufacture and align these subjects, projects employ participatory practices that are informed by recognition politics aimed at disciplining participants toward particular identities and ways of thinking and acting. We analyze these distinct strategies as multiple governmentalities enacted through participatory adaptation projects seeking to produce specific climate change resilient hydrosocial territories and corresponding subjects.
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- 2020
21. Resisting, leveraging, and reworking climate change adaptation projects from below : placing adaptation in Ecuador’s agrarian struggle
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Megan Mills-Novoa, Rutgerd Boelens, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Jeroen Vos
- Subjects
Cultural Studies ,resistance ,Latin America ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Anthropology ,Climate change adaptation ,WASS ,political ecology ,politics ,Water Resources Management ,governmentality - Abstract
As climate change escalates, donors, international organizations, and state actors are implementing adaptation projectsEmbedded within these adaptation projects are imaginaries of rural resilience. These imaginaries, however, are contested by individuals and collectives targeted by such initiatives. In this article, we draw on Foucault’s notion of counter conducts to understand how beneficiaries in Ecuador resist, leverage, and/or rework adaptation interventions and towards what end. We identified five counter conducts: (1) negotiating for control, (2) setting the terms for participation, (3) opting out, (4) subverting the discursive frame, and (5) leveraging longevity. We argue that these counter conducts are generative, enacting multi-scalar counter-hegemonic politics of agrarian transformation.
- Published
- 2022
22. Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice
- Author
-
Rutgerd Boelens, Arturo Escobar, Karen Bakker, Lena Hommes, Erik Swyngedouw, Barbara Hogenboom, Edward H. Huijbens, Sue Jackson, Jeroen Vos, Leila M. Harris, K.J. Joy, Fabio de Castro, Bibiana Duarte-Abadía, Daniele Tubino de Souza, Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Nuria Hernández-Mora, Joan Martínez-Alier, Denisse Roca-Servat, Tom Perreault, Carles Sanchis-Ibor, Diana Suhardiman, Astrid Ulloa, Arjen Wals, Jaime Hoogesteger, Juan Pablo Hidalgo-Bastidas, Tatiana Roa-Avendaño, Gert Jan Veldwisch, Phil Woodhouse, and Karl M. Wantzen
- Subjects
Cultural Studies ,WASS ,Cultural Geography ,ontological complexity ,Water Resources Management ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,river commoning ,Anthropology ,hydrosocial territories ,translocal movements ,Environmental justice ,ELS Universitair Docent ,disruptive co-production - Abstract
Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering ‘unruly waters and humans’ have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water justice movements (NWJMs) proliferate: rooted, disruptive, transdisciplinary, multi-scalar coalitions that deploy alternative river–society ontologies, bridge South–North divides, and translate river-enlivening practices from local to global and vice-versa. This paper's framework conceptualizes ‘riverhood’ to engage with NWJMs and river commoning initiatives. We suggest four interrelated ontologies, situating river socionatures as arenas of material, social and symbolic co-production: ‘river-as-ecosociety’, ‘river-as-territory’, ‘river-as-subject’, and ‘river-as-movement’.
- Published
- 2022
23. The Irrigation Frontline – Examining Land Use Change and Resource Rights Fueling the Michoacan Berry Boom
- Author
-
Sarah Hartman, Michelle Farfán, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Paolo D'Odorico
- Published
- 2021
24. The limits to large scale supply augmentation: Exploring the crossroads of conflicting urban water system development pathways
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger, Nora Van Cauwenbergh, Pamela Claure Gutierrez, Jonatan Godinez Madrigal, and Pieter van der Zaag
- Subjects
System development ,Distribution networks ,business.industry ,Scale (social sciences) ,Water source ,Economic shortage ,Water industry ,Urban water ,business ,Environmental planning - Abstract
Managers of urban water systems constantly make decisions to guarantee water services by overcoming problems related to supply-demand imbalances. A preferred strategy has been supply augmentation through hydraulic infrastructure development. However, despite considerable investments, many systems seem to be trapped in lackluster development pathways making some problems seem like an enduring, almost stubborn, characteristic of the systems: over-exploitation and pollution of water sources, distribution networks overwhelmed by leakages and non-revenue water, and unequal water insecurity. Because of these strategies and persistent problems, water conflicts have emerged, whereby social actors oppose these strategies and propose alternative technologies and strategies. This can create development pathways crossroads of the urban water system. To study this development pathway crossroads, we selected the Zapotillo conflict in Mexico where a large supply augmentation project for two cities experiencing water shortages is at stake. The paper concludes that urban water systems that are engaged in a trajectory characterized by supply-side strategies may experience a temporal relief but neglect equally pressing issues that stymie the human right to water in the medium and long run. However, there is not a straightforward, self-evident development pathway to choose from, only a range of multiple alternatives with multiple trade-offs that need to be thoroughly discussed and negotiated between the stakeholders. We argue that this development pathway crossroads can cross-fertilize technical disciplines such as socio-hydrology, and social disciplines based on hydrosocial studies, which both ambition to make their knowledge actionable and relevant.
- Published
- 2021
25. Mapping the expansion of berry greenhouses onto Michoacán’s ejido lands, México
- Author
-
Paolo D'Odorico, Michelle Farfan, Sarah Hartman, and Jaime Hoogesteger
- Subjects
remote sensing ,agro-export ,machine learning ,greenhouse agriculture ,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,land tenure ,WASS ,mapping ,Water Resources Management ,General Environmental Science - Abstract
Agricultural transformations have significantly contributed to the global market’s year-round supply of capital-intensive greenhouse-grown crops. For instance, berry production in México is increasingly relying on greenhouse systems to meet the growing demand of international markets, particularly in the USA. It is still unclear to what extent these transformations are related to land tenure, as data on greenhouse distribution often do not exist, are incomplete, or lack spatial resolution. This paper presents a support vector machine learning algorithm tool to map greenhouse expansion using satellite images. The tool is applied to the major berry-growing region of Michoacán, México. Here agricultural areas are transforming to satisfy foreign demand for berries, altering local land and water resource use patterns. We use this tool and a unique land tenure dataset to investigate (a) the spatially explicit extent to which high-input commercial agriculture (mainly the production of berries) has expanded in this region since 1989; and (b) the extent to which smallholder (ejidal) land has been incorporated into the highly capitalized agro-export sector. We combine a national dataset on ejidal land (which includes both communal and parcel land) with geospatial agricultural data to quantify the land-use changes in six municipalities in the berry-growing region of Michoacán between 1989 and 2021. We find that the development of the greenhouse berry boom can be quantified and shown with spatially-explicit detail, growing from zero to over 9,500 ha over the period, using almost one-quarter of all regional agricultural land in 2020. We further find that the capital-intensive market-oriented berry industry has been widely integrated into smallholder ejidal lands, so much so that over half of greenhouses are found there.
- Published
- 2022
26. Contractual Reciprocity and the Re-Making of Community Hydrosocial Territories: The Case of La Chimba in the Ecuadorian páramos
- Author
-
Rutgerd Boelens, Jaime Hoogesteger, Rossana Manosalvas, and ARTES (FGw)
- Subjects
collective action ,Páramos ,Geography, Planning and Development ,community territories ,Community territories ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,0507 social and economic geography ,páramos ,WASS ,Andes ,Context (language use) ,02 engineering and technology ,Hydrosocial territories ,Aquatic Science ,CONTEST ,Collective action ,Biochemistry ,Indigenous ,Contractual reciprocity ,Reciprocity (social psychology) ,Political science ,hydrosocial territories ,Cultural politics ,TD201-500 ,Water Science and Technology ,Downstream (petroleum industry) ,Governance ,Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes ,business.industry ,Corporate governance ,05 social sciences ,021107 urban & regional planning ,Hydraulic engineering ,Making-of ,Water Resources Management ,contractual reciprocity ,Economy ,governance ,Ecuador ,business ,cultural politics ,TC1-978 ,050703 geography - Abstract
In the Andes, indigenous communities are being increasingly besieged because their páramos act as water providers for cities and irrigation systems downstream. This has led indigenous communities to protect their hydrosocial territories from external actors and re-create them to contest these threats. In this context, we analyse how the Kayambi community of La Chimba in the northern Sierra of Ecuador has managed to defend and secure its hydrosocial territory through the creation and re-creation of its indigenous identity and networks and related cultural politics that find expression in different forms of contractual reciprocity. As a result, the community hydrosocial territory (re)-creation itself is a weapon of resistance, a decolonising process where rural communities continuously can produce their own forms of development. This is particularly important in a context where governments in the region are relying on extractivism and in the explotation of indigenous territories.
- Published
- 2021
27. Regulating agricultural groundwater use in arid and semi-arid regions of the Global South: Challenges and socio-environmental impacts
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger
- Subjects
Socio-environmental sustainability ,Governance ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Environmental Chemistry ,WASS ,Groundwater ,Irrigation ,Water Resources Management ,Water policy - Abstract
Groundwater forms the basis for millions of rural and urban livelihoods in the Global South. Its use for irrigation has spurred widespread socio-economic development in various areas but has also led to aquifer overdraft and related socio-environmental impacts. This article presents common challenges that agricultural groundwater regulation faces in the areas of intensive use. It shows the main approaches that have been used to try to regulate and control groundwater use. These revolve mostly around direct regulation by the state; different forms of co-management between groundwater user groups and state agencies; and incentives aimed at reducing agricultural groundwater use. This review analyzes why in many contexts, these mechanisms have not led to more sustainable aquifer use. Finally, the article brings to highlight the important challenges this poses in terms of socio-environmental sustainability.
- Published
- 2022
28. Corporate labour standards and work quality : insights from the agro-export sector of Guanajuato, Central Mexico
- Author
-
Gaya Massink and Jaime Hoogesteger
- Subjects
Working hours ,Corporate codes of conduct ,Labour economics ,Poverty ,05 social sciences ,Guanajuato ,WASS ,labour standards ,Development ,work quality ,050601 international relations ,Water Resources Management ,0506 political science ,Work quality ,Work (electrical) ,Situated ,agro-export chains ,050602 political science & public administration ,Production (economics) ,Business ,Sociological imagination ,Mexico - Abstract
In this article we analyse how workers perceive corporate labour standards and the related work conditions in the agro-export sector of Northern Guanajuato, Central Mexico. We do so by first comparing labour standards on local farms to labour standards at an international fresh vegetable production, harvesting, processing and export company that has explicit corporate labour standards. Second, we present how workers from two rural communities of landless workers employed in the agro-export industry perceive the differences between work at local farms and work at the agro-export company. Our results show that better pay and secondary benefits resulting from corporate labour standards do not necessarily translate to perceptions of better work quality. This relates to the broader work conditions in which these labour standards are inserted. Many workers prefer work with lower labour standards but that has more convenient working hours and enables engagement in family and social activities alongside the job. Based on these results we argue that, from a sociological perspective, work quality is a situated and very context-specific notion. Therefore, higher labour standards and better pay even in contexts of cheap labour and widespread poverty are not necessarily associated by workers with higher work quality.
- Published
- 2021
29. Bee mietii rak rkabni nis (The people know how to seed water) : A Zapotec experience in adapting to water scarcity and drought
- Author
-
Carmen Santiago Alonso, Britt Basel, Jaime Hoogesteger, Roberto Velasco Herrera, and Nadir Hernández Quiroz
- Subjects
collective action ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Natural resource economics ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Climate change ,WASS ,drought ,010501 environmental sciences ,Development ,Collective action ,Affect (psychology) ,01 natural sciences ,Indigenous ,Water scarcity ,Traditional knowledge ,Mexico ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Global and Planetary Change ,managed aquifer recharge ,Sociohydrology ,community-based adaptation ,water security ,Water Resources Management ,Water security ,Geography ,climate change ,indigenous knowledge ,Know-how - Abstract
We are facing a global water crisis exacerbated by hydro-climatic extremes related to climate change. Water scarcity is expected to increasingly affect indigenous and marginalized populations. Supporting the sovereignty of indigenous and rural populations to create water secure futures through place-based knowledge, local management, and Community-based Adaptation (CBA) measures may help tackle this crisis. Zapotec communities in Oaxaca, Mexico have self-organized for collective action to use Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) to address water scarcity, resulting in a perceived increase of groundwater availability. Treating groundwater as a common-pool resource (CPR) within a sociohydrological system, the objectives of this paper are two-fold: (1) to explore how MAR may be implemented as a CBA measure, and (2) to understand what factors triggered and/or enabled the widespread implementation of MAR by Zapotec indigenous communities in the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca, Mexico. In doing so, we aim to get a better understanding of local processes while also furthering theories that relate to CBA, CPR, and sociohydrology. This paper was born from the desire of the Zapotec community members to share their experience and lessons learned so other drought-vulnerable communities might benefit.
- Published
- 2021
30. The end of the rural/urban divide? Migration, proletarianization, differentiation and peasant production in an ejido, Central Mexico
- Author
-
Federico Rivara and Jaime Hoogesteger
- Subjects
Archeology ,Global and Planetary Change ,Differentiation ,business.industry ,Proletarianization ,Wage labour ,Distribution (economics) ,Context (language use) ,WASS ,ejido ,migration ,Peasant ,Water Resources Management ,peasants ,Geography ,Anthropology ,Capital (economics) ,Development economics ,Agricultural productivity ,business ,Mexico ,social differentiation - Abstract
This article explores the relations between agricultural production, international migration, wage labour and processes of differentiation among peasant households. It does so based on the analysis of the ejido Jesus Maria in the northeast of the state of Guanajuato, Central Mexico. The history of this ejido and how Mexican neoliberal policies led to increased levels of migration and proletarianization since at least the early 1990s is presented. Then, it presents how in this context the production of asparagus for agro-export developed on the irrigated lands of this ejido, showing that this process went hand in hand with social differentiation and important changes in the distribution of land and water. Then, it presents the results of a household and production survey that shows that most peasant households combine agricultural production with local urban and rural wage labour, migration, remittances and/or other economic activities. Households that can live from agriculture alone have had important capital investments in agricultural production coming from international migration and remittances. Based on these results, it argues that, as rural communities become increasingly dependent on external ‘urban/global’ capital, the rural/urban divide has become increasingly permeable with important consequences for peasant economies and related social differentiation processes.
- Published
- 2021
31. Unpacking wastewater reuse arrangements through a new framework : insights from the analysis of Egypt
- Author
-
Mohamed Hassan Tawfik, Jaime Hoogesteger, Petra Hellegers, and Amgad Elmahdi
- Subjects
Unpacking ,Wastewater reuse ,WIMEK ,media_common.quotation_subject ,sewerage treatment ,WASS ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Water Resources Management ,irrigation ,Scarcity ,water policy ,Egypt ,Business ,Environmental planning ,Water Science and Technology ,media_common - Abstract
Wastewater reuse is identified as strategic to help ameliorate scarcity in water-stressed regions around the world. However, to develop it, there is a need to better understand the social, institutional and technological contexts in which it takes place. This article develops a novel socio-technical framework to inform such an analysis and applies it to current wastewater reuse in Egypt. Our analysis highlights the different actors, management activities and practices that shape wastewater collection, transfer, treatment, discharge and/or reuse in different social, technological and environmental contexts in Egypt. It points out bottlenecks of current wastewater reuse policies and programmes.
- Published
- 2021
32. Irrigation management transfer in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of policy implementation across scales
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger, Gert Jan Veldwisch, and Cesario Cambaza
- Subjects
sub-Saharan Africa ,Water politics ,Irrigation ,Sub saharan ,media_common.quotation_subject ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,WASS ,02 engineering and technology ,010501 environmental sciences ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,01 natural sciences ,Policy implementation ,irrigation management transfer ,Irrigation management ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Water Science and Technology ,media_common ,Water policy ,Water Resources Management ,policy implementation ,020801 environmental engineering ,Business ,Bureaucracy ,Water resource management ,water politics - Abstract
This article explores how irrigation management transfer policies were implemented in Mali, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. In Mali and Mozambique, where the irrigation bureaucracy controlled one large irrigation system, state agencies retained control over irrigation management despite reduced state funding. In Malawi and Zimbabwe, where the state irrigation systems and the irrigation bureaucracy were smaller, users have taken over irrigation management, but are having trouble sustaining irrigated agriculture. We show how irrigation management transfer policies were shaped by the interplay between international donors, macro-economic dynamics, national politics and the interactions with (and the nature of) irrigation infrastructure, bureaucracies and organized users.
- Published
- 2020
33. Hydrosocial territories
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger, Philippus Wester, Rutgerd Boelens, Jeroen Vos, Erik Swyngedouw, and Governance and Inclusive Development (GID, AISSR, FMG)
- Subjects
0208 environmental biotechnology ,0507 social and economic geography ,Identity (social science) ,WASS ,02 engineering and technology ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,scalar politics ,governmentality ,Politics ,water governance ,Political science ,hydrosocial territories ,political ecology ,Water Science and Technology ,Governmentality ,05 social sciences ,Perspective (graphical) ,Political ecology ,Natural resource ,Water Resources Management ,020801 environmental engineering ,Management ,Expression (architecture) ,Political economy ,050703 geography ,Meaning (linguistics) - Abstract
We define and explore hydrosocial territories as spatial configurations of people, institutions, water flows, hydraulic technology and the biophysical environment that revolve around the control of water. Territorial politics finds expression in encounters of diverse actors with divergent spatial and political-geographical interests. Their territory-building projections and strategies compete, superimpose and align to strengthen specific water-control claims. Thereby, actors continuously recompose the territory’s hydraulic grid, cultural reference frames, and political-economic relationships. Using a political ecology focus, we argue that territorial struggles go beyond battles over natural resources as they involve struggles over meaning, norms, knowledge, identity, authority and discourses.
- Published
- 2016
34. Territorial pluralism: water users’ multi-scalar struggles against state ordering in Ecuador’s highlands
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger, Michiel Baud, Rutgerd Boelens, Governance and Inclusive Development (GID, AISSR, FMG), and CEDLA (FGw)
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,0507 social and economic geography ,WASS ,02 engineering and technology ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,water reforms ,CONTEST ,Indigenous ,irrigation ,resistance ,scale ,Political science ,Water Science and Technology ,media_common ,business.industry ,Corporate governance ,05 social sciences ,Environmental resource management ,territorial pluralism ,Peasant ,Water Resources Management ,020801 environmental engineering ,water user organization ,Pluralism (political theory) ,Political economy ,Ecuador ,business ,050703 geography ,Autonomy - Abstract
Ecuadorian state policies and institutional reforms have territorialized water since the 1960s. Peasant and indigenous communities have challenged this ordering locally since the 1990s by creating multi-scalar federations and networks. These enable marginalized water users to defend their water, autonomy and voice at broader scales. Analysis of these processes shows that water governance takes shape in contexts of territorial pluralism centred on the interplay of divergent interests in defining, constructing and representing hydrosocial territory. Here, state and nonstate hydro-social territories refer to interlinked scales that contest and recreate each other and through which actors advance their water control interests.
- Published
- 2016
35. The social construction and consequences of groundwater modelling: insight from the Mancha Oriental aquifer, Spain
- Author
-
Juan José Gómez-Alday, David Sanz, Jeroen Vos, Jaime Hoogesteger, Eduardo Cassiraga, and Femke Rambags
- Subjects
INGENIERIA HIDRAULICA ,Social construction of technology ,Groundwater flow ,Process (engineering) ,Policy making ,Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,Aquifer ,WASS ,02 engineering and technology ,010501 environmental sciences ,Development ,01 natural sciences ,Modelling ,Environmental planning ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Water Science and Technology ,geography ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,Social constructionism ,Water Resources Management ,020801 environmental engineering ,Groundwater governance ,Model-based policy-making ,Spain ,Business ,Groundwater model ,Groundwater - Abstract
[EN] Groundwater flow models have been increasingly used to support policy making. A substantial amount of research has been dedicated to improving, validating and calibrating models and including stakeholders in the modelling process. However, little research has been done to analyze how the choices of model makers and steering by policy makers result in models with specific characteristics, which only allow specific modelling outcomes, and how the use of these modelling outcomes leads to specific social, economic and environmental consequences. In this study, we use the social construction of technology framework to explore the development, characteristics and uses of the groundwater model of the Mancha Oriental aquifer in Spain. The specific characteristics and functioning of this model influenced the policy implementation, implying that involving stakeholders in the development and use of models is crucial for improved democratic policy making., This work was carried out as part of the collaboration agreement between the University of Castilla–La Mancha and Wageningen University. The research is also part of Femke Rambags’ MSc Thesis. David Sanz was supported by the Grants for Stays at Other Universities and Research Centres (UCLM). Special thanks go to the Júcar Water Authority (CHJ) and stakeholders (JCRMO) in the Mancha Oriental System for the necessary information. We would also like to thank Dr A. Sahuquillo of the Universitat Politècnica de València de Valencia and Dr S. Castaño of the University of Castilla–La Mancha for comments and participation in the first stage of modelling. The contents of this paper do not represent the views of CHJ or JCRMO. Finally, we thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their valuable comments and suggestions.
- Published
- 2018
36. Regulating groundwater use : The challenges of policy implementation in Guanajuato, Central Mexico
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger and Philippus Wester
- Subjects
Energy pricing ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,media_common.quotation_subject ,0208 environmental biotechnology ,Geography, Planning and Development ,WASS ,02 engineering and technology ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Groundwater use ,01 natural sciences ,State (polity) ,Order (exchange) ,Policy implementation ,User self-regulation ,Environmental planning ,Mexico ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,media_common ,Water policy ,business.industry ,Environmental resource management ,Water Resources Management ,020801 environmental engineering ,Interdependence ,Water markets ,Groundwater management ,business ,Water use ,Groundwater - Abstract
Around the world it has proven very difficult to develop policies and interventions that ensure socio-environmentally sustainable groundwater use and exploitation. In the state of Guanajuato, Central Mexico, both the national government and the decentralized state government have pursued to regulate groundwater use through direct state control, groundwater markets, energy pricing, and user self-regulation. We present and analyze these regulatory mechanisms and their outcomes in the field. We argue that the close interdependencies of these regulatory mechanisms have pre-empted the effectiveness of these policy instruments as well as that of other measures aimed at reducing groundwater use in order to advance towards sustainable exploitation levels.
- Published
- 2017
37. Villains or Heroes? Farmers' adjustments to water scarcity
- Author
-
Jean-Philippe Venot, François Molle, Jaime Hoogesteger, and Mats Lannerstad
- Subjects
Irrigation ,Water scarcity ,Natural resource economics ,Drainage basin ,Soil Science ,Economic shortage ,WASS ,drought ,Structural basin ,coping strategies ,irrigation ,basin ,Leerstoelgroep Irrigatie en waterbouwkunde ,jordan valley ,China ,Irrigation and Water Engineering ,resilience ,geography ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,Middle East ,india ,conjunctive use ,balance ,Business ,Conjunctive use ,Water resource management ,china ,Agronomy and Crop Science - Abstract
Although farmers are often seen as wasting water and getting a disproportionate share of water. irrigation is losing out in the competition for water with other sectors. In cases of drought. water restrictions are overwhelmingly imposed on irrigation while other activities and domestic supply are only affected in cases of very severe shortage All over the world, farmers have been responding to the challenge posed by both short- and long-term declining water allocations in many creative ways, but these responses have often been overlooked by policy makers. This paper examines how farmers have adapted to water scarcity in six different river basins of Asia and the Middle East. It inventories the different types of adjustments observed and shows not only their effectiveness in offsetting the drop in supply but also their costs to farmers and to the environment and their contribution to basin closure. The conclusion calls for a better recognition of the efforts made by the irrigation sector to respond to water challenges and of its implications in terms of reduced scope for efficiency gains in the Irrigation sector.
- Published
- 2010
38. Intensive groundwater use and (in)equity: Processes and governance challenges
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger and Philippus Wester
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,water ,highlands ,Aquifer ,WASS ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,irrigation ,State (polity) ,policies ,Environmental planning ,media_common ,Environmental justice ,organizations ,geography ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,depletion ,business.industry ,Corporate governance ,Environmental resource management ,Equity (finance) ,india ,Livelihood ,sustainability ,Water Resources Management ,strategies ,Sustainability ,Business ,Groundwater ,management - Abstract
Groundwater forms the basis for millions of rural and urban livelihoods around the world. Building on insights from the theory of access, in this article we present how groundwater development has brought much well-fare in many parts of the world; and how resulting intensive groundwater use is leading to ill-fare through aquifer overexploitation and processes of water accumulation and dispossession. We show the difficulty of state regulation and the modest achievements of other governance approaches that aim to solve existing groundwater problems. To study these processes we propose a framework of analysis that is based on the study of hydrosocial-networks, the political economy of groundwater and the domains and discourses that define groundwater access. Such analysis highlights the challenges of devising policies and modes of governance that contribute to social and environmental sustainability in intensively used aquifers. These we argue should build on an analysis of equity that scrutinizes the discourses, actors, powers and procedures that define groundwater access. By inciting debates on equity a first and fundamental step can be made toward advancing more inclusive groundwater governance that crucially engages the marginalized and addresses their groundwater problems, concerns and needs.
- Published
- 2015
39. Water for Food Water for Life
- Author
-
Jorge Rubiano Mejia, Angela Arthington, Colin Maxwell Finlayson, Sander Zwart, Jane Turpie, David Molden, Stephan Haefele, Tushaar Shah, Elena Bennett, Upali S. Amarasinghe, Simon Cook, Olaf Erenstein, Peter Mollinga, Philippus Wester, Jean-Yves Jamin, Paramjit Singh Minhas, Garry Peterson, Tom Wassenaar, Mats Lannerstad, Achim Dobermann, Jaime Hoogesteger, Ilyas Masih, Johan Rockström, Pieter Van der Zaag, Jon Hellin, Claudia Sadoff, Mario Herrero, Line Gordon, Arlene Inocencio, and François Molle
- Subjects
Water resources ,Water conservation ,Agriculture ,business.industry ,Integrated water resources management ,Farm water ,Environmental science ,Water industry ,Water resource management ,business ,Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture ,Water scarcity - Abstract
In Molden, David (Ed.). Water for food, water for life: a Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. London, UK: Earthscan; Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
- Published
- 2013
40. NGOs and the Democratization of Ecuadorian Water Governance: Insights from the Multi-Stakeholder Platform el Foro de los Recursos Hídricos
- Author
-
Jaime Hoogesteger
- Subjects
Economic growth ,Public Administration ,Sociology and Political Science ,Multi-stakeholder platforms ,050204 development studies ,Strategy and Management ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Geography, Planning and Development ,Public policy ,Context (language use) ,WASS ,Grassroots ,Political science ,0502 economics and business ,050602 political science & public administration ,Democratization ,Business and International Management ,Social policy ,media_common ,Earth-Surface Processes ,Corporate governance ,Grassroots organizations ,05 social sciences ,Democracy ,Water Resources Management ,0506 political science ,Water resources ,NGOs ,Ecuador ,Water governance - Abstract
NGOs have taken up an increasing number of roles and responsibilities in Latin American societies. Based on a study of the multi-stakeholder platform, the Water Resources Forum in Ecuador, this paper shows how through the creation of a broad network of NGOs, academics, grassroots water users organizations and governmental actors; this platform has been able to contribute to the democratization of water governance. This paper analyses the international and national socio-political context in which this platform developed and traces the history and strategies that marked its development. Based on this, it argues that NGOs can play an important role in the development of more democratic and inclusive public policy making in water governance, but that the capacity of NGOs to bring about change greatly depends on the socio-political context and on the networks they are able to forge with grassroots organizations, state agencies, funders and other third sector actors.
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