Law, Scarcity, and Social Movements: Water Governance in Chile's Maipo River Basin Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Borgias, Sophia Layser Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 24/09/2021 11:02:33 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/613576 LAW, SCARCITY, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: WATER GOVERNANCE IN CHILE’S MAIPO RIVER BASIN by Sophia Layser Borgias ____________________________ A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF GEOGRAPHY AND DEVELOPMENT In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2016 1 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis titled Law, Scarcity, and Social Movements: Water Governance in Chile’s Maipo River Basin prepared by Sophia Layser Borgias has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a master’s degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Sophia Layser Borgias APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: _________ May 9, 2016 Carl J. Bauer Date Associate Professor of Geography 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the people in Chile who took the time to talk with me and contribute to this research. I am deeply grateful to all of the members of the No Alto Maipo movement who welcomed me into their meetings and events and shared their knowledge and experiences. Also, big thanks to Sebastián Vicuña, Rodrigo Fuster, and Juan Pablo Orrego for being my trusted “gatekeepers,” to Cristián Zamorano for taking me to see all of the sections of the Maipo River, and to Andrea, Maggie, and Melanie for hosting me at various times in Santiago. I feel very privileged to have an amazing support system at the University of Arizona. I would like to thank my advisor, Carl Bauer, for his invaluable guidance and mentorship, as well as my committee members, Elizabeth Oglesby and Christopher Scott, for their feedback and insight. Additional gratitude to Chris and the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy for supporting this research over the past two years. I am also greatly appreciative of the support and inspiration I get from my fellow graduate students. Special thanks to Sarah Kelly-Richards and Manuel Prieto for lighting the way. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their unwavering support throughout my endeavors and my partner, David Chambers, for his patience and encouragement, as well as his photographs that so beautifully capture the stories of the Maipo. ---- Thank you to all of the institutions that funded this research: Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN3056, supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-1128040) and IAI SGP-CRA #005 (Grant GEO- 1138881) Tinker Foundation with the University of Arizona Center for Latin American Studies Latin America Specialty Group (LASG) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group (CAPE) of the AAG Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG) University of Arizona Graduate and Professional Student Council University of Arizona Institute of the Environment University of Arizona Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute 3 Law, Scarcity, and Social Movements: Water Governance in Chile’s Maipo River Basin Sophia Layser Borgias Table of Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………...6 Research Context and Questions…………………………………………………………………....6 The Maipo River Basin……………………………………………………………………………..6 Neoliberalism and Water Management in Chile ……………………………………………….......8 Outline of the Thesis ………………………………………………………………………………10 Literature Review …………………………………………………11 Introduction.……………………………………………………………………………………......11 Legal Pluralism and Legal Geography: Law, society, and space……………………………….....11 Political Ecology: Water, environmental conflict, and social movements …………………….....12 Water Governance: Conflict resolution and civil society……………………………………….....14 A New Synthesis: Water governance through the lens of legal geography and political ecology...15 Methods ……………………………………………………………16 Research Design…………………………………………………………………………………...16 Data Collection Methods by Research Question…………………………………………………..17 Data Analysis Methods………………………………………………………………………….....19 [CHAPTER 1] ……………………………………………………………20 A Right to Leave the River Dry? The politics of river sectioning in Chile Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..20 River Flows and River Sections in Chilean Water Law…………………………………………...21 Organizing the Maipo: Sections, user organizations, and the DGA………………………………24 History of Water Management in the First Section of the Maipo………………………………....27 Legal Boundaries and Everyday Practices Along the Maipo River……………………………….32 Looking Toward the future: Climate change and coordination…………………………………...37 River Sections: A legal simplification, complicated……………………………………………....40 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………42 [CHAPTER 2] ……………………………………………………………43 “Subsidizing the State”: Water Conflicts, Social Movements, and the Neoliberal Model Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..43 Extraction or Protection? Environmental Conflict in the Cajón del Maipo ………………………45 The Alto Maipo Hydroelectric Project…………………………………………………………….49 Community, Social Movement, and Government Responses to Alto Maipo……………………..53 Networks of Power and the Absent State………………………………………………………….55 Social Movement Resistance……………………………………………………………………....59 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………67 4 [CHAPTER 3]…………………………………………………………….70 Contested Narratives of Water Scarcity Amidst Chile’s “Mega-Drought” Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..70 The Drought Crisis ………………………………………………………………………………..71 Uneven Water Scarcity ………………………………………………………………………........72 Government Responses to Drought ……………………………………………………………….75 Confronting Climate Change: Incremental adaptation or major reform? ……………………........76 Scarcity Amidst Abundance: Water access in the Cajón del Maipo………………………………78 Mobilizing Around Scarcity: No Alto Maipo……………………………………………………...81 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………84 Conclusions ………………………………………………………...86 Law, Social Movements, and Scarcity: What does it all mean for water governance? …………..86 Summary of Key Findings………………………………………………………………………...86 Connections and Crosscutting Themes……………………………………………………………87 Preliminary Policy Recommendations…………………………………………………………….89 Potential for Further Research…………………………………………………………………….90 Water Governance: Where to from here? ………………………………………………………...91 References…………………………………………………………..92 Abstract The challenges of water governance in Chile today lie at the confluence of growing water demands, increasing climatic variability, and mounting discontent with neoliberal water policy. These these dynamics coalesce in the Maipo, Chile’s most densely populated river basin and seat of the capital city, Santiago. The Maipo River sustains the growing capital city of Santiago, booming agricultural production in the Santiago valley, and hydroelectric generation from the river’s swift descent from the Andes. Now, with the population of Santiago exceeding 5 million, a seventh year of drought racking central Chile, and controversial hydropower development sparking mass protests, the stakes of water governance in this critical river basin are higher than ever. Based on in-depth empirical research in the Maipo River basin, this thesis explores how processes of environmental and social change interact with Chile’s internationally famous water laws to shape water governance, understood as the set of processes through which actors influence decision-making and conflict resolution related to water resources . Bringing legal geography and political ecology into conversation with water governance literature, I analyze the ways that law, social mobilization, and water scarcity are shaping water governance. In Chapter 1, I analyze the law of river sectioning and the way it influences water use and management practices throughout the Maipo River basin. Chapter 2 explores the Alto Maipo hydropower conflict in the upper basin and demonstrates the important role of social movement actors trying to shift water governance in new directions. Themes from both of these chapters converge in Chapter 3, which examines the struggle over the meaning of water scarcity in the context of increasing attention to drought and climate change. These dynamic socio-environmental processes are considered in relation to each other as integral parts of the ongoing negotiation of water governance. This research aims to insert considerations of social and environmental justice into ongoing policy