ABSTRACT
Inspired by contemporary scholarship on political ecology, this chapter critically explores international development policies, state politics and hydrosocial transformation interactions. By focusing on borderlands, it aims to analyse how the establishment of the Chu-Talas Commission (2006), supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and other donors, has reworked the hydrosocial cycle in the Talas transboundary waterscape, shared by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The hydrosocial cycle was analysed through a focus on the role of water institutions, their political discourses and the management of transboundary infrastructures. By advancing the notion of the Conflicting Borderlands Hydrosocial Cycle, this contribution reflects on the lack of success of development initiatives in reconfiguring hydrosocial relations. Moreover, it aims at conceptualising a borderlands setting where the hydrosocial cycle is deeply transformed and fragmented by conflicting state politics, logics and practices.
