Hydrosocio-territorial struggles: Shifting of water rights frameworks in Bolivia

Historically, most irrigation systems in Bolivia have been set up by peasant communities, and only more recently some government irrigation projects have been established. In these processes, peasant communities developed their own organizational and regulatory frameworks to arrange access and control of water. These are manifested in the ways they conceive, defend and claim water rights. The lack of understanding of this water rights frameworks, by planners and designers of irrigation development, commonly results in the implementation of prescriptive, top-down irrigation projects, which commonly aim to transform locally established water rights frameworks. In many instances, these irrigation projects are fiercely resisted by groups of actors who are adversely involved in or bluntly excluded from these processes. Therefore, the research problem focuses on the lack of knowledge about the interaction between irrigation development and the changing and divergent approaches to water rights that different stakeholders apply. Focusing on the case study of the Pucara river basin, the thesis addresses the following main research question: “How have changing approaches to water rights shaped irrigation development and control over water for different stakeholders in the Pucara river basin?”.

Through the integration of empirical-theoretical notions of water-user driven normative frameworks, with water networks and hydrosocial territory theoretical approaches; the thesis examines the expansion and reconfiguration of irrigation systems in the Pucara basin. It does so through the identification and analysis of diverse and divergent languages of water rights legitimation as deployed by the different stakeholders.

This thesis is based on the study of irrigation development in the Pucara river basin, located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Herein, it focuses in-depth on the study of historical development of the Totora Khocha irrigation system. The theoretical knowledge was developed inductively from empirical data collected through qualitative methods, at three analytical scales: river basin, irrigation system and interbasin.

A conceptual framework to analyse the divergent forms of water rights legitimation in river basins is discussed in chapter 2. The conceptual framework focusses on the diverse mechanisms for legitimizing water rights, their dynamics and hybrid nature in struggles over water access. Through the exploration of five river basins, five mechanisms for legitimizing water rights were identified. In all the analysed cases, there is a main mechanism recognized as legitimate by most user groups. However, the user groups strategically also use other competing mechanisms to claim and defend the legitimacy of their water rights. These mechanisms are dynamic over time in relation to processes to recreate the contents of water rights as those promoted by irrigation projects.

Starting with the river basin scale, chapter 3 explores the historical development of irrigation in the Pucara river basin. Over the three periods of irrigation development, the prevailing language of legitimation of water rights changed: from modes based on user investments, to forms that emphasize territorial claims. In the first period (1950–1978), acquiring rights was sustained through user investments (hydraulic property) in infrastructure development. In the second period (1978–1995), a shift took place to territorially-oriented claims over water rights. They emerged in response to governmental attempts to reorganize Pucara’s hydrosocial territory. In the third period (1995–2017), more rigid territorial claims over water sources and use rights have become decisive in the struggle over water. The territorialization of water claims was increasingly related to changes in national policies, such as the process of administrative decentralisation, and the empowerment of peasant communities.

In chapter 4, the thesis focusses on the system scale, exploring the historical expansion of the Totora Khocha dam-based irrigation system. The origin of the dam dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when a landlord commanded the construction of an earthen dam. After the land reforms of 1953, the water-network shifted from monopolistic control to collective control by peasant communities. In the 1960s, the system expanded to increase the storage capacity of the reservoir, including new users. As an attempt to reopen the closed river basin, in the 1980s, the state planned the construction of a new and much larger dam over the original reservoir. The prescriptive way to design the irrigation project was challenged by different user groups, who struggled for their inclusion in the project and the expanding water network. This resulted in complex processes of negotiated system re-engineering. Therefore, the irrigation design process in a closed river basin, beyond following from prescriptive system building, is better understood as a dynamic and negotiated process of engineering and hydrosocial networking.

Chapter 5 focusses on interbasin scale, analysing the historical development of the Interbasin Transfer Project Yungas de Vandiola. This project was designed with the purpose to expand, again, the Totora Khocha irrigation system. The chapter describes four subsequent configurations of alternative hydrosocial territories: the original Interbasin Transfer Project (2002), the alternative plan by the highland communities (2006), the new Interbasin Transfer Project (2008), and the new alternative plan proposed by a coalition of expanded highland communities (2009). During this process, groups of communities that were initially not included in the project, crystalized their hydro-territorial imaginaries and forged multi-scalar alliances to materialize their territorial perspectives, in response to wider political and cultural developments at the national level. This gradually altered the dominant imaginary of the hydrosocial territory as was reflected in the Yungas de Vandiola project plans, resulting in the cancelation of the project.

The general conclusions, first of all, point at how water user communities have historically and dynamically elaborated a grounded repertoire of water rights approaches to respond to prevailing climatological, agro-ecological, demographic and normative-political challenges. Rather than being ‘indigenous’ or ‘traditional’, they entwine, hybridize and embed locally born and outside water governance norms, organizational structures and technological opportunities. Next, my thesis shows how this has recently culminated in a strategic ploy whereby some actor alliances engage with the emergent formal policy focus on community water rights and territorial sovereignty. They use this national framing to locally claim collective, territorial water rights, through discursive legitimization, re-conceptualization of hydrosocial territories, and the negotiated expansion of water control and irrigation development.