Water as More than Commons or Commodity: Understanding Water Management Practices in Yanque, Peru
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3110487Utgivelsesdato
2019Metadata
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Sammendrag
: Global warming, shrinking glaciers and water scarcity pose challenges to the governance of fresh water
in Peru. On the one hand, Peruʼs water management regime and its legal framework allow for increased private
involvement in water management, commercialisation and, ultimately, commodification of water. On the other
hand, the state and its 2009 Water Resource Law emphasise that water is public property and a common good for
its citizens. This article explores how this seeming paradox in Peruʼs water politics unfolds in the district of Yanque
in the southern Peruvian Andes. Further, it seeks to challenge a commons/commodity binary found in water
management debates and to move beyond the underlying hegemonic view of water as a resource. Through
analysing state-initiated practices and practices of a more-than-human commoning – that is, practices not grounded
in a human/nature divide, where water and other non-humans participate as sentient persons – the article argues
that in Yanque many versions of water emerge through the heterogeneous practices that are entangled in water
management.