ABSTRACT
It is an increasingly accepted policy notion that water scarcity and water insecurity are not so much related to the precarious, absolute availability of sufficient fresh and clean water but rather to the ways in which water and water services are distributed, in contexts of unequal power. The United Nations Human Development Report, for example, emphasizes the need to ‘debunk the myth that the crisis is the result of scarcity … poverty, power and inequality are at the heart of the problem’ (UNDP, 2006). Similarly, the Asian Development Bank concludes that ‘the key issue in almost all circumstances is not whether there is enough water: it is the factors that determine and limit whether the poor can gain access to the benefits that water resources provide’ (Soussan, 2004, p20). Consequently, the notion of water security is necessarily politically contested and relates to power differentials. For instance, for millions of marginalized families around the world who face the powerful water interests of capitalist agribusiness, forest logging, mining, and hydropower companies, as well as nation-states' economic, political, and military objectives, defending control over water resources is a matter of life and death (Goldman, 1998; Swyngedouw, 2005; Bakker, 2010). Water is the liquid that feeds their livelihood systems and, often, the energizer that invigorates collective action. But despite the worldwide importance of smallholder production systems for livelihood security, the threats and water insecurities they face in a globalizing society are ever growing (Swyngedouw, 2000; Martínez-Alier, 2002).
