Rural–Urban Water Struggles (Routledge Special Issues on Water Policy and Governance)

Rural–Urban Water Struggles compiles diverse analyses of rural–urban water connections, discourses, identities and struggles evolving in the context of urbanization around the world.

Departing from an understanding of urbanization as a process of constant making and remaking of multi-scalar territorial interactions that extend beyond traditional city boundaries and that deeply reconfigure rural–urban hydrosocial territories and interlinkages, the chapters demonstrate the need to reconsider and trouble the rural–urban dichotomy. The contributors scrutinize how existing approaches for securing urban water supply – ranging from water transfers to payments for ecosystem services – all rely on a myriad of techniques: they are produced by, and embedded in, specific institutional and legal arrangements, actor alliances, discourses, interests and technologies entwining local, regional and global scales. The different chapters show the need to better understand on-the-ground realities, taking account of inequalities in water access and control, as well as representation and cultural-political recognition among rural and urban subjects.

Rural–Urban Water Struggles will be of great use to scholars of water governance and justice, environmental justice and political ecology. This book was originally published as a special issue of Water International.

Lena Hommes is an Associated Researcher with the Water Resources Management Group of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on hydrosocial territories, rural–urban water relations, politics of water infrastructure projects, water justice struggles and socio-environmental transformations in Latin America.

Rutgerd Boelens is a Professor of Water Governance and Social Justice in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and a Professor of Political Ecology of Water in Latin America with CEDLA (Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation) at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Peru (Department of Social Sciences), Lima, Peru, and the Central University of Ecuador (Faculty of Agricultural Sciences), Quito, Ecuador, and coordinates the international Justicia Hídrica / Water Justice Alliance. He is also the main scientific editor of the book series Water and Society, bringing together various Latin American publishing houses. His work includes articles and books focusing on water rights, water grabbing, hydrosocial territories, legal pluralism, cultural politics, governmentalities and social mobilizations in Latin America and Spain.

Leila M. Harris is a Professor with the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and with the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. At UBC, she is also a member of the EDGES research collaborative and serves as the co-Director for the Program on Water Governance (PoWG). Her research focuses on the social, political and equity dimensions of environment and resource issues, with particular interest in water politics and governance. Recent projects have included focus on water access and governance in Ghana, South Africa and Canada. Internationally, she is also involved with the International WaTERS Research and Training Network as well as the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Research Network.

Gert Jan Veldwisch is an Associate Professor with the Water Resources Management Group of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the practices, policies and politics of agricultural water management, including farmer-led irrigation development, water grabbing, waste water use in agriculture, agrarian change, and issues around water justice. Currently, he works mostly in Southern and Eastern Africa, but he has also worked in Latin America and Central Asia.