Social Dynamics in Water Conflicts: Towards Social-Political Innovations using the Example of the Water Conflict in Petorca (Chile)
While facing climate change impacts such as water scarcity and droughts on a local level, social innovations may take place; yet, the canon of international provisions cannot reach civil society effectively or does so only unsatisfactorily. Thus, the knowledge about the emergence and potency of such dynamics could help decrease the vulnerability of societies, raising their adaptation capability.
Chile demonstrates numerous examples for this gap between international and local action. Since the privatization of water started in 1981 a neo-liberalistic system was established and monopolies emerged – especially on natural resources. Additionally, the beneficial outcome of the current water governance differs widely between rural and urban areas.
Petorca - a province north of Santiago de Chile – is struggling with a water conflict due to water scarcity. The main actors are small farmers, citizens, politicians and big farming companies of the region. Climate change, monoculture farming as a developing strategy, water privatization and missing public regulations are known to be the main reasons for the drought (INDH 2012: 142).
The case of Petorca shows on the one hand, that the current (political) institutions are not able to provide a sufficient solution to the problem. On the other hand, the semi urban characteristics of Petorca reflect the differences of water problems in rural and urban areas. At the same time, a significant number of the self-organized environmental groups and activists emerged in Chile on both a regional and a national level in the recent years.
Their claim for a sustainable and democratic change concerning water regulations could indicate a rising awareness of their ecological heritage. My research question is built up on this debate. I will take Petorca as a reasonable example to discuss the emergence of social movements through socio-ecological conflicts and their impact on the resilience of the regional semi urban system.
By this, I will analyze in which way the institutional framework is promoting or impeding such social developments towards sustainability comparing the different conditions of rural and urban societies. In other words: What are the possibilities of rural and urban communities to participate in the current institutional system and to which extends are social innovations able to provide new procedures of solutions?