Water injustice Paper

[TONES PLAYING]

In this lecture, the

third lecture of week 1,

I want to expand upon two

sets of ideas about justice

that you may have noticed in

your reading of the Santa Cruz

Declaration on the

Global Water Crisis.

The first set explores

justice and the uses of water.

In other words, how may

justice and injustice

differ as we focus on

water for agriculture,

water for industry,

water for cities,

and other large

social uses of water.

The second set of

ideas of social justice

distinguish between distributive

goals and procedural processes

of justice and begin to let us

think about ideas of justice

as recognition and participation

raised in the declaration.

These ideas can build

upon the approach

to justice of Amartya

Sen and Mahbub ul Haq.

The expiration of social

justice in relation

to broad ideas of

social uses of water,

such as agriculture

and industry,

can be well-grounded

in the goals

of people struggling for lives

that they have reason to value.

Then the dimensions

of distributive

and procedural participation

and recognition

come to life when

they engage with lives

and struggles of

tangible people.

Again, Sen's and Haq's framework

of capabilities and freedoms

provides ways to

ground social justice

in each of these dimensions.

Water use and justice I

want to talk about first.

There are striking differences

between social relationships

and justice concerns

in relation to the use

of water in industry,

agriculture, cities, and more.

We will be taking

these questions further

in subsequent weeks.

Here, I want to describe the

social context of these uses,

so that I can explain

how water justice takes

a different form in each case.

Water is needed for

growing all crops.

If rainfall is

insufficient, as it

is in many places

across the world,

then human ingenuity is required

to deliver water to crops.

This water is termed irrigation.

As you will be aware,

there are many technologies

to deliver water to farmland.

And behind the

implementation and operation

of those technologies,

there are social relations

and political conflict.

Those technologies

often matter, contribute

to the making of

inequality and injustice,

so does the nature of social

change in agriculture.

We will get back to this topic

in more detail in a later week.

Here, I want to describe some

elements of water injustice

in agriculture.

The ability to control

water for crops

is a central element

in social change.

At its simplest, those with

water can produce more crops,

and some may get rich.

While those who cannot may find

their ability to grow crops

declining.

So irrigation water is

a significant element

in the divisions of society.

Some get rich, while

others get poor.

In other words, access to and

control over irrigation water

is central to the

making of rich and poor.

This is particularly

noticeable in those countries

of the global south, where a

large part of the population

is employed on the land.

In industrialized

countries like the US,

only a small proportion, in the

range 2% to 4%, is so employed.

On irrigation,

the declaration is

describing the issues that arise

around water for agriculture.

Sometimes, there are

established traditions and even

plural sets of laws in peasant

and indigenous societies.

These can be

suppressed by the way

that governments exert

their power and the power

of large landowners.

Also, the apolitical,

technical language

of new irrigation schemes can

overlook existing traditions

and processes of sharing.

So there's an issue of water

justice and agriculture there.

In cities, issues

of water justice

are not so much

about sharing water--

the central question

in agriculture.

Urban water justice

considers who

can get access to water, whether

it carries waterborne disease,

if it is sufficient for

all household purposes,

and with what difficulties of

distance, dignity, and price

is it collected.

Here, the declaration

is describing

the striking

inequalities of access

to water and

sanitation in cities,

particularly in

the global south.

Almost all such cities

have large shantytowns

and other unauthorized

settlements.

Generally, these are referred

to as informal settlements.

In an earlier time,

they were termed slums.

We will be discussing these

questions more in future weeks

and particularly in the week

on urban water and sanitation

justice.

The declaration also

discusses the issue

of water injustice

arising in mining

oil and valuable minerals,

often in forests and indigenous

areas, and the water injustices

associated with a wave of land

grabbing in Africa.

Here, foreign companies,

particularly from China

but also from Europe, have

begun to buy up land in order

to practice large-scale,

industrial farming.

Here, too, significant

water issues arise.

If we go back to the slide

I showed you in lecture 1

on the global consumption

of water for different uses,

we see that urban industrial

uses take a larger proportion

of water consumption

when societies become

developed or industrialized.

For industry, water

was a key element

of early industrialization.

It provided motive power

through water wheels

for textile mills and

other early industries.

In the Santa Cruz

Declaration, we

encounter several other issues

of water justice related

to these water issues

of mining, land

grabbing, and International

water disputes.

Each raises a somewhat

different set of justice issues.

In Latin America, for example,

there are many struggles,

particularly of

indigenous peoples,

against the use and pollution

of water for mineral extraction.

Periodically, disputes over

the sharing and development

of international rivers

rises to be global news.

Way back, I wrote a book about

the sharing of the river Ganges

in South Asia between India,

Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Several river questions

around the rivers

of the Himalayas involving

those three countries and China

and others continue.

But in this class, we will

not spend too much time

on international water disputes.

if you are strongly interested

in this issue, send me an email

and we can talk more.

The second set of ideas help us

break down several dimensions

of social justice.

They concern the

outcomes, elements,

and procedures of justice.

The first two concern

straightforward ideas--

distributive justice

and procedural justice.

Distributive justice

asks, who gets what

and how much do they get.

This is most simply

illustrated by looking

at water for irrigation in

dry countries and dry seasons.

As I mentioned earlier, those

who get water may get rich,

and those who do

not may stay poor.

So in this case,

what do you think?

What is fair,

equitable, or just?

Should all farmers get water?

Should they get the same amount

of water, or enough water

to cover the land

that they cultivate?

Should they get enough water

to grow water-intensive crops,

like rice or almond trees.

Those are questions of

distributive justice.

That leads straight

forwardly into questions

of procedural justice.

Who decides and how?

What social and

political practices

lead to the allocation of water?

I want you to watch a

short clip of video.

It's from an interview I

recorded with Peter Mollinga.

He's a professor of development

studies at London University,

who has undertaken long

term detailed research

into a huge canal

system in southern India

called the Tungabhadra

canal system.

I asked Peter

Mollinga to illustrate

distributive and procedural

justice in the context

of this canal system.

Could you provide an example

from your work on the canal

irrigation system in

South India of how

procedural and distributive

justice are different

and how they operate?

Yes.

Well, my simplest

explanation of the difference

between two types of justice--

two elements of justice,

is probably more correct--

procedural and distributive,

is the distributive justice,

I think, is defined in terms of

outcomes-- who gets how much,

the headenders and

the tailenders problem

of unequal

distribution, which is

manifest in most

irrigation systems

in the world to some degree.

So, yeah, who gets

more and who gets less,

in water terms, that's a

very straightforward kind

of manifestation of distributive

injustice or justice.

And there can be

degrees of that.

Procedural justice,

in that sense,

is about who has voice in the

process of that production

of that inequality or efforts

to do something about it.

Is everyone entitled to sit

on the water users committee?

I mean, in the state of Andhra

Pradesh, where I have worked,

the irrigation reform of the

late 1990s first had in its act

that only land owners could

be members of water users

associations.

So they had voice--

in principle, have voice

in the deliberation

at that local level on

the rules for distribution

and all the other things.

As it happened, many

actual water users

were not landholders, but

were actually sharecroppers

or tenants or not the formerly

registered landowners.

And also, there were

water users, even

in the irrigation system, which

were not irrigators, which

used water for other purposes.

So there was a whole

discussion about who

is entitled to be part of the

deliberation of local water

management.

And that is about

procedural justice,

one element of

procedural, justice

so having the right to voice.

And then, of course, it is about

the conduct of that process.

Because you can say,

everybody has a voice,

but if some people are

more powerful than others

for other reasons

then the voice--

even when you're

part of the process,

your voice might not be

equally appreciated or present.

So there are many more

aspects of procedural justice,

either in general terms

or in class terms again.

But, I mean, that I think

illustrates the point already,

yeah.

So Mollinga says, distributive

justice is about outcomes--

who gets more water

and who gets less.

He mentions a tailender

and headender problem--

having an influence on

how much water people

get in all irrigation systems.

Canals carry water downhill.

At the start of the

canal, the head end,

there's lots of water.

At the bottom, or

tail end of the canal,

there is much less water.

Farmers down the length of the

canal have taken out water.

So those farmers at the

head end of the system

can take more water.

And those at the tail end tend

to be left with much less.

What Mollinga has

found in his research

is that certain

groups of farmers

who have managed to get land

at the head of the canal,

they grow water-intensive

crops, like sugar and rice,

and they become rich.

Those further down the canal

can only get much less water.

And their chances of getting

rich are then minimal.

So these are questions

of distributive justice.

How does this happen?

Many social processes around

land, wealth, and power

are at work.

From the perspective of water,

what are the procedures?

Here, Mollinga concentrates

on who has voice--

who sits on committees deciding

the allocation of irrigation

water.

He describes the example of

local water users associations

that are limited

only to landowners.

But many users do not own land.

And many use water

for other purposes.

Even or if all have a place

at the table, some are heard

and others are not.

These are questions

of procedural justice.

Questions of social

justice and water justice

arise in relation

to other elements

of justice mentioned in

the declaration, notably

recognition and participation.

These questions will be taken

up throughout the class most

immediately next week.

I want to talk briefly

about environmental justice

and varieties of

environmentalism.

The Santa Cruz

Declaration can be

seen as a statement about

environmental justice.

It's about water and

justice after all.

This is reasonable,

and we will be

referring to environmental

justice in several upcoming

weeks.

Before we go further, I want

to say a couple of words

about different traditions

of environmental justice--

one rooted in the United States

and the industrialized world,

the other arising

in the global south,

the developing countries,

emerging countries,

and industrializing world.

An environmental historian,

Ramachandra Guha,

and an economist,

Joan Martinez Alier,

summarized the difference

between these two traditions

as full-stomach versus

empty-belly environmentalism.

The first refers to the

global north and the second

to the global south.

The view from the south,

empty-belly environmentalism

builds on the perceptions

and valuations of nature

of subordinate groups--

peasants, fisherfolk,

landless laborers.

It focuses

particularly on poverty

and originates in social

conflicts over access

to and control over

natural resources.

A whole range of

justice questions

are questioned around

forest, water, and energy.

Often the rural

poor try to retain

control of forest

and water resources

against state takeover, mining,

or the advance of capitalism.

In the north, these two writers

use full-belly environmentalism

to describe concerns

particularly of wilderness

and conservation.

These concerns, they

argue, are quite

different from

those of movements

of the poor in the global south.

And then we can recognize

a separate, third tradition

of environmental justice that

is organized particularly

around the concentration of

toxic waste and deprivation

facing minority communities.

We will be referring to these

traditions in several places

in the class--

environmental justice

in the US and the north

and environmental movements

in the global south.

Now, you get to watch a video

before opening next reading.

It's made by an environmental

justice coalition

about the human right

to water in poor towns

and rural communities

in California.

In this video, you will see

that many towns and communities

in California suffer a

range of water injustices.

This question is

considered in more detail

in the week on water

justice in the global north

and global south.

Now that you have

watched that video,

I want you to begin to read

the third reading for this week

on defining and researching

struggles for water justice.

Margreet Zwarteveen

and Rutgerd Boelens

are professors in

the Netherlands

who have long

histories of research

on a range of water justice

questions all across the world.

They wrote this

paper in the wake

of the equitable governance

of water conference

at UC Santa Cruz in 2013.

And they are also two of the

authors of the Santa Cruz

Declaration coming out

of that conference.

The paper they wrote

is insightful, probably

the best overview

of water justice

and struggles for water justice.

But it is hard work to read.

It is full of interesting

and pertinent ideas.

It is, however, dense.

In the next lecture,

I will bring out

and illustrate what seemed to

me key elements of the paper.

As with any academic

paper, I recommend

that you read the

beginning and the end

before tackling the

stuff in the middle.

What is the main argument?

You can get that

from the abstract.

It aims to provide a

"framework for understanding

water problems as

problems of justice."

So it's important

to this course.

What are the main

section headings?

When I am making notes on a

significant academic paper,

I start by listing the

main headings in the paper.

That gives me an

overview of the content

and doesn't take too

much intellectual effort.

With that, I can decide which

sections I want to read.

And when I'm making

notes on such a paper,

I use a bibliographic

application,

so that I can keep my

notes all in one place.

There are several

free applications.

Zotero is one that

many people use.

And colwiz is another.

Maybe you too want to

keep all your notes

on readings in one place.

Take a look at Zotero or colwiz.

Early on in the

paper, you can see

that it is taking up

issues we have come across

earlier this week.

The paper is

building on the idea

that we saw in the

Santa Cruz Declaration

that global water crises

arise more from injustice

than directly from

scarcity of water.

It is also taking for granted

the idea from Sen and Haq

that justice should be

rooted in peoples' lives

rather than abstract and

universal conceptions

of fairness and justice.

So I want you to take a

look at that paper next.