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Abstract
The Cochabamba water war in 2000 was the first water war of the twenty-first century. During the mobilizations in Bolivia, a factory workers’ manifesto read: “We don’t want private property nor state property, but self-management and social property.” The social practices of many Cochabambinos and Cochabambinas did not defend water as an object. They supported forms of life in common and a way of practicing democracy in the politics of presence. They recalled traditional usos y costumbres, which have been reconfigured in their encounter with other unprecedented practices, situations, and legal systems. Finally, the water war insurgents aimed to restore another practice of democracy and different property relations. Social property (propiedad social) was born in the social and political context of the water war mobilizations. In this article, I investigate social property as a practice that exceeds the current legal definition of ownership and discloses new legal forms of relationship with water. Methodologically, it is about extracting theory from practice – extracting from concrete social practices new concepts that require thinking about.
disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 During one of my conversations with Marcela Olivera, she pointed out that, in the water war, terms like “recuperar” and “reconstituir” the social fabric were very common among people. The writing of this article owes much to Marcela, her generosity, and her political insights.
2 The Coordinadora arose spontaneously. At the beginning of the conflict, the activists of the Coordinadora sought refuge in a convent, and the nuns accepted. It was not clear who or what the Coordinadora was, so much so that people asked, “Where is ‘la señora coordinadora,’ […] the brave female coordinator who is defending water” (Beltrán 35).
3 On the term “synchronization,” see Tomba 9–10.
4 On the appropriation of water and SEMAPA by the state, see Crespo Flores.
5 The principle stated by the Court is that “customary law cannot violate the Constitution and the laws.” This means that indigenous territories are not only not an autonomous jurisdiction from the state but are subject to forced institutionalization (institucionalización forzada) and state dominion of lands (see Chivi).
6 An example of this legal scaling-up is found in Ferrajoli.
7 Article 304, which should recognize rural native indigenous autonomies and authorities clarifies the extent of this authority: “Irrigation systems, hydraulic resources, sources of water and energy, within the framework of State policy, within their territory” (Art. 304.III.4).
8 Article 30 provides indigenous people the right to “self-determination and territoriality” (Art. 30.II.4), “the collective ownership of land and territories” (Art. 30.II.6), and “to be consulted by appropriate procedures, in particular through their institutions” (Art. 30.II.15).
9 On the impossibility to translate the indigenous legal system into the grammar of the state’s liberal framework, see Bellina.
10 In 2007, despite the Ecuadorian government’s declaration that it would have suspended the extraction of oil from a field within the Yasuni National Park, despite the attribution of legal rights to nature by incorporating Pacha Mama (Art. 71) in the 2008 Constitution, in 2013, Rafael Correa’s government announced that, for economic reasons, the extraction of oil had become necessary.
11 As we can read in a statement of 6 February 2000 by the Coordinadora: “For us […] this is the true meaning of democracy: we decide and do, discuss and carry out” (“Texts of the Coordinadora del Agua of Cochabamba”).
12 These “ontological” differences at the basis of the subject–object and subject–subject relationship are primarily based on different property relationships.
13 An English translation of the Cochabamba Declaration is also available in Olivera and Lewis.
14 See, for example, the case of women in Turkey and Kurdistan (Üstündağ).
15
After the Cochabamba Water War, when people returned to normal life, many women who had participated in the protests described profound changes in their identity as community members, especially relative to their participation in activities that would have been off-limits to them prior to the water war […] participation cannot be mandated by decree; it is part of a profound cultural change that has to permeate all social actors. (Bennett et al. 121–22)
16 The article was provided to me by Marcela Olivera and is the English translation of “La crecida de las aguas. Los bienes comunes restablecidos por la gente en Bolivia” also published under the title “La crecida de las aguas. Los comunes y la visión Andina del agua restablecidos por la gente en Bolivia y los Andes,” 2016, in desinformemonos.org/la-crecida-de-las-aguas.