Shifting of Water Rights Frameworks in Bolivia
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Propositions 1. In the Andean region’s river basins, diverse actor coalitions strategically deploy diverse and divergent water rights legitimation languages to reinforce their water claims and materialize their wished-for hydrosocial territories. (this thesis) 2. Irrigation development, beyond institute-based prescriptive projects, needs to be understood as a multi-actor negotiated process involving continuous contestation and redesign. (this thesis) 3. Technological instruments can be evaluated “not only for their contributions of efficiency and productivity, … but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority” (Winner, L. 1980. Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus 109 (1): 121-136. Page 121). 4. “History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction” (Watterson, B. 1994. Homicidal psycho jungle cat: a Calvin and Hobbes collection. Andrews McMeel Publishing: Kansas City. Page 148). 5. It is easier to write about irrigation in the Bolivian Andes than to irrigate in this highlands region. 6. Natural resource management is conflict management. Propositions belonging to the thesis, entitled Hydrosocio-territorial struggles: Shifting of water rights frameworks in Bolivia Rígel Rocha López Wageningen, 26 August 2020 HYDROSOCIO-TERRITORIAL STRUGGLES Shifting of water rights frameworks in Bolivia Rígel Rocha-López Thesis committee Promotor Prof. Dr R.A. Boelens Personal chair, Water Resources Management Group Wageningen University & Research Co-promotors Dr J.M.C. Vos Associate Professor, Water Resources Management Group Wageningen University & Research Dr E. Rap Visiting researcher IHE Delft Institute for Water Education Other members Prof. Dr J.W.M. van Dijk, Wageningen University & Research Prof. Dr T.A. Perreault, Syracuse University, USA Prof. Dr J.D. Van der Ploeg, Wageningen University & Research Dr F. de Castro, CEDLA, University of Amsterdam This research was conducted under the auspices of the Wageningen School of Social Sciences. HYDROSOCIO-TERRITORIAL STRUGGLES Shifting of water rights frameworks in Bolivia Rígel Rocha-López Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor at Wageningen University by the authority of the Rector Magnificus, Prof. Dr A.P.J. Mol, in the presence of the Thesis Committee appointed by the Academic Board to be defended in public on Wednesday 26 August 2020 at 4 p.m. in the Aula. Rígel Rocha-López Hydrosocio-territorial struggles: Shifting of water rights frameworks in Bolivia 127 pages. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands (2020) With references, with summary in English and Spanish ISBN 978-94-6395-443-3 DOI https://doi.org/10.18174/525594 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 Research problem: Irrigation development as an arena of disputes ........................................ 2 1.3 Central themes .......................................................................................................................... 5 1.3.1 Irrigation development ......................................................................................................... 5 1.3.2 Water rights’ dynamics ......................................................................................................... 7 1.3.3 Hydrosocial territorialization ................................................................................................ 9 1.4 Context of the case study ........................................................................................................ 10 1.4.1 Irrigation development in Bolivia ....................................................................................... 11 1.4.2 The Pucara River Basin ....................................................................................................... 13 1.4.3 The Totora Khocha irrigation system .................................................................................. 15 1.5 Research questions ................................................................................................................. 17 1.6 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 18 1.7 Structure of the thesis ............................................................................................................. 21 CHAPTER 2 FORMS OF COLLECTIVE WATER RIGHTS LEGITIMATION: A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………25 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 26 2.2 Conceptualization of water rights ........................................................................................... 26 2.3 Mechanisms for the acquisition and legitimization of water rights ........................................ 29 2.4 Analyzing collective rights at the basin scale .......................................................................... 30 2.4.1 Case studies ........................................................................................................................ 31 2.4.2 Ways of acquiring and legitimizing water rights in river basins ......................................... 31 2.4.3 Dynamics of the forms of acquisition and legitimation of water rights ............................. 34 2.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3 TRANSFORMING HYDROSOCIAL TERRITORIES AND CHANGING LANGUAGES OF WATER RIGHTS LEGITIMATION: IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN BOLIVIA’S PUCARA RIVER BASIN .............................................................................. 37 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 38 3.2 Hydrosocial territories and languages of water rights legitimation ........................................ 40 3.3 Methods ..................................................................................................................................42 3.4 Irrigation development in the Pucara river basin .................................................................... 43 3.4.1 From the hacienda to community control over irrigation water (1950–1978) .................. 43 3.4.2 Government planned re-ordering of hydrosocial territories (1978–1995) ........................ 47 3.4.3 Further territorializing water (1995–2017) ........................................................................ 50 3.5 Discussion and conclusions ..................................................................................................... 54 CHAPTER 4 RE-ENGINEERING CLOSING RIVER BASINS: THE NEGOTIATED EXPANSION OF A DAM-BASED IRRIGATION SYSTEM IN BOLIVIA ................................................. 57 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 58 4.2 Re-engineering water networks .............................................................................................. 59 4.3 The origin: the Ovejerıa Khocha dam ...................................................................................... 60 4.4 The prescriptive design of the Totora Khocha dam irrigation system ..................................... 62 4.5 Negotiating the expansion of the Totora Khocha dam water network ................................... 65 4.5.1 Encountering and recognizing the original Ovejeria Khocha water network ..................... 65 4.5.2 Emergent actors and new claims: reordering the planned Totora Khocha water network ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….66 4.5.3 The outcome: dynamic water networks ............................................................................. 67 4.6 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 68 CHAPTER 5 HYDROSOCIAL TERRITORIES IN DISPUTE: FLOWS OF WATER AND POWER IN AN INTERBASIN TRANSFER PROJECT IN BOLIVIA .................................................. 71 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 72 5.2 Water, power, and hydrosocial territorialization .................................................................... 73 5.3 Methods ..................................................................................................................................75 5.4 The Yungas de Vandiola irrigation project and the production of hydrosocial territories ...... 75 5.4.1 The hydrosocial territory proposed by the project designers ............................................ 75 5.4.2 Hydrosocial territory proposed by communities in Upper Tiraque .................................... 78 5.4.3 The new hydrosocial territory proposed by the project designers .................................... 80 5.4.4 Hydrosocial territory proposed by FRIAC: the project’s 'death sentence' .......................... 83 5.5 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................