Watershed Politics and Climate Change in Peru

This book travels to the heart of power, inequality and injustice in water politics. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Peru, Astrid B. Stensrud explores the impact of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), an extractivist global water paradigm that views water as a finite resource in need of management. Where the local bureaucracy has adapted to IWRM and a new water culture is being fostered amongst the population, Stensrud examines the tensions arising between 'indigeneity' and 'modernity', between cultural practices and questions of power. Engaging with the many different actors and entities participating in the constitution of the watershed - from engineers, politicians and bureaucrats, to farmers, workers and animals - Stensrud shines light on how both the watershed and our understanding of water itself have changed over the last few decades. Methodologically innovative, Watershed Politics and Climate Change in Peru makes an original contribution to the scholarship on global-local relationships.

About the author

Astrid B. Stensrud is Associate Professor at the Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder. She is the co-editor of Climate, Capitalism and Communities (Pluto, 2019) and a contributor to Waterworlds (Berghahn, 2016) and Identity Destabilised (Pluto, 2016).

Summary

A critique of the global emphasis on water’s economic value and extractivist policies, based on an ethnography of a watershed in Peru

Product details

• Authors: Astrid B. Stensrud, Astrid B. Stensrud
• Publisher: Pluto
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2021
• EAN: 9780745340203
• ISBN: 978-0-7453-4020-3
• No. of pages: 240
• Series: Anthropology, Culture and Society; Anthropology, Culture and Soci
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Peru, NATURE / Natural Resources, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography, NATURE / Ecology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social impact of environmental issues, Science / Environmental Science, Social and cultural anthropology, Human Geography, For higher / tertiary / university education, Drought & Water Supply, Drought and water supply