Movements against the current : scale and social capital in peasants’ struggles for water in the Ecuadorian Highlands

This thesis is about peasant and indigenous struggles for water rights in the Ecuadorian Highlands. It is based on the following main research question: How have peasant and indigenous communities developed multi-scalar political agency in water governance to gain and maintain their water access and related rights in the Ecuadorian Highlands since the 1980s? To answer this question, this thesis analyses the histories and relationships between organized water users, water reforms and non-governmental development organisations (NGOs) active in the Ecuadorian irrigation sector. Through state reforms, and processes of coproduction between NGOs and local peasant and indigenous communities, water user associations were created in many supra-community irrigation systems. Once created, these organisations formed the basis for the development of provincial and national federations and policy advocacy networks and platforms that now form the building blocks of the Ecuadorian water users movement.