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Table of contents (10 chapters)
Keywords
- Water security
- water rights
- formalization
- legal pluralism
- political ecology
- indigenous communities
- peasant communities
- Peru
- Bolivia
- water justice
- Andean highlands
- irrigation
- qualitative research
- human rights
- conflict analysis
- discourse analysis
- social justice
- comparative research
- Latin America
- social movements
About this book
The author scrutinizes the claim of policy-makers and experts that legal recognition of local water rights would reduce water conflict and increase water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. She analyzes two distinct 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' formalization policies in Peru and Bolivia - neoliberal the former, indigenist-socialist the latter. The policies have intended and unintended consequences and impact on marginalized peasants and the complex inter-legal systems for providing water security on the ground. This study seeks to debunk the official myth of the need to create state-centric, top-down legal security in complex, pluralistic water realities. The engagement between formal and alternative 'water securities' and controversial notions of 'rightness' is interwoven and contested; a complex setting is unveiled that forbids one-size-fits-all solutions. Peru's and Bolivia's case studies demonstrate how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, in practice actually reinforce exclusion of the marginalized. Water rights formalization is certainly no panacea.
Reviews
"This book, without exaggeration, importantly contributes to understanding the formulation and workings of policies in a key field of development intervention in the Andean Region, and thereby makes a strong contribution to the field of 'the politics of policy' in natural resource management studies. Miriam Seemann gives a profound, refreshing and very creative response to the currently widespread 'rights formalization policies' that, despite their intentions of helping the poor, often have a dramatic impact on the lives and livelihoods of precisely these groups." - Rutgerd Boelens, Professor of the Political Ecology of Water in Latin America, CEDLA, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Miriam Seemann is an associate researcher at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Germany. She received her PhD from the University of Hamburg and holds an MA in Intercultural Conflict Management from the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences, Berlin. Her current research focuses on natural resource management, social struggles and peace and conflict studies. She is a member of the Justicia HÃdrica / Water Justice Alliance.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Water Security, Justice and the Politics of Water Rights in Peru and Bolivia
Authors: Miriam Seemann
Series Title: Environment, Politics and Social Change
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137545237
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54522-0Published: 06 January 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-58044-6Published: 11 February 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-54523-7Published: 08 April 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 226
Topics: Latin American Politics, Environmental Politics, Natural Resource and Energy Economics, Latin American Culture, Development Studies, Political Science