Hydrosocial territories, agro-export and water scarcity: capitalist territorial transformations and water governance in Peru’s coastal valleys

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, an agro-export boom has deeply transformed Peru’s coastal valleys, resulting in dramatic territorial changes and social inequality in the Ica Valley. This article explains how politico-economic and socio-institutional forces have triggered the emergence of a new ‘hydrosocial territory’, transforming the Ica Valley into a virtual-water extraction zone that produces luxury export crops for the North and China. In addition, it shows how these territorial reconfigurations have led to ecological damage, water scarcity and increasing rural–urban inequality sustained by a hegemonic development discourse that supports agribusiness-elite territorial dominance and discourages social unrest.

KEYWORDS:

• Water governance
• hydrosocial territory
• agro-export
• rural-urban relationships
• food security
• Ica
• Peru

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Boelens et al. (2016), Budds and Hinojosa (2012), Hommes and Boelens (2017, 2018), Hoogesteger et al. (2016), Swyngedouw (2009), and Vos and Hinojosa (2016).

2. http://www.ana.gob.pe/media/528,051/ica%20-%20plan%20de%20gesti%C3%B3n.pdf.

3. See also http://www.juasvi.com/juasvi_agro1.html.