ABSTRACT
This chapter examines struggles for water and water rights in the Andes where water plays a key role in the livelihoods of peasant and indigenous communities. These local user collectives face growing threats from powerful extra-local interest groups who claim or undermine their water rights for their own economic, political or military objectives (e.g. Gelles, 2000; de Vos et al, 2006; Boelens, 2009). Given that these intervening actors, such as state agents, agro-commercial enterprises, mining companies, hydropower stations and other dominant players, use strategic tools and governance techniques that sprout from national frameworks and global networks, ‘local’ user groups also look for responses that extend beyond their home domains. Thus, threats to their territories and water resources require user collectives to organize not just within their local, mostly common property institutions, but increasingly to pursue their objectives, organizations and defence mechanisms at a variety of scales.
