Librería Portfolio

Collective Action is now recognized as central to addressing the water governance challenge of delivering sustainable development and global environmental benefits. This book examines concepts and practices of collective action that have emerged in recent decades globally. Building on a Foucauldian conception of power, it provides an overview of collective action challenges involved in the sustainable management and development of global freshwater resources through case studies from Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America.

The case studies link community-based management of water resources with national decision-making landscapes, transboundary water governance, and global policy discussion on sustainable development, justice and water security. Power and politics are placed at the centre of collective action and water governance discourse, while addressing three core questions: how is collective action shaped by existing power structures and relationships at different scales? What are the kinds of tools and approaches that various actors can take and adopt towards more deliberative processes for collective action? And what are the anticipated outcomes for development processes, the environment and the global resource base of achieving collective action across scales?



Table of Contents
1. Introduction

Diana Suhardiman, Alan Nicol, Everisto Mapedza

2. Power and Politics in Water Governance: Revisiting the Role of Collective Action in the Commons

Diana Suhardiman, Louis Lebel, Alan Nicol, Theresa Wong

3. The Collective is Political: Lessons from the Nile Basin Initiative

Alan Nicol

4. Grassroots Scalar Politics in the Peruvian Andes: Mobilising Allies to Defend Community Waters in the Upper Pampas Watershed

Andres Verzijl, Jaime Hoogesteger, Rutgerd Boelens

5. Hydro-Hegemony or Water Security Community? Collective Action, Cooperation and Conflict in the SADC Transboundary Security Complex

Richard Meissner and Jeroen Warner

6. Place Attachment and Community Resistance: Evidence from the Cheay Areng and Lower Sesan 2 Dams in Cambodia

Oliver Hensengerth

7. Politics of Knowledge and Collective Action in Health Impact Assessment in Thailand: The Experience of Khao Hinsorn Community

Carl Middleton, Somporn Pengkham, Areeya Tivasuradej

8. Agricultural Water Management in Matrilineal Societies of Malawi: Land Ownership and Implications for Collective Action

Everisto Mapedza, Emelder Tagutanazvo, Barbara van Koppen, Christopher Manyamba

9. Collective Action, Community and the Peasant Economy in Andean Highland Water Control

Rutgerd Boelens and Jaime Hoogesteger

10. Collective Action and Governance Challenges in the Tonle Sap Great Lake, Cambodia

Sanjiv de Silva, Kim Miratori, Ram C Bastakoti, Blake D Ratner

11. Goldmining, Dispossessing the Commons, and Multi-Scalar Responses: The Case of Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico

Didi Stoltenborg and Rutgerd Boelens

12. Key Constraints and Collective Action Challenges for Groundwater Governance in the Eastern Gangetic Plains

Ram C Bastakoti, Fraser Sugden, Manita Raut, Surendra Shrestha

13. Stakeholder Perspectives on Transboundary Water Cooperation in the Indus River Basin

Muhammad Azeem Ali Shah and Panchali Saikia

14. Reimagining South Asia: Hopes for an Indus Basin Network

Medha Bisht

15. Structure, Agency, and Challenges for Inclusive Water Governance at Basin Scale: Comparing Mekong with the Nile

Everisto Mapedza, Diana Suhardiman, Alan Nicol

16. Synthesis: Power, Alliances and Pathways for Collective Action

Diana Suhardiman, Alan Nicol, Everisto Mapedza