Open Series co-organized with the FLOWs blog from IHE Delft Institute of Water Education, looking at struggles over more just and ecological water presents and futures.

June 7, 2022

Public Water Services in times of emergency: the case of the Covid19 outbreak

By Gemma Gasseau. The book “Public Water and Covid-19: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings”, discusses how the Covid19 outbreak has underlined once again the importance of water and other basic services for human life, and re-opened the debate on the role of the state in managing such services.
May 24, 2022

Conflicts over the memorialization of water in Barcelona: A temporal turn in political ecology

By Lucia Alexandra Popartan and Camil Ungureanu. As part of the current global trend towards the “museification” of water and processes of re-municipalization, the politics of memory of hydraulic infrastructures and water resources has become a key battleground between corporations and transformative socio-political movements. These struggles in cities such as Barcelona show the relevance of complementing the spatial turn in political ecology and urban geography with a temporal turn.
October 19, 2021

Reclamando el derecho a la autogestión del agua

Por Marcela Olivera y Stefano Archidiacono Veinte años después de la Guerra del Agua en Cochabamba (Bolivia), reflexionamos sobre la “autogestión” del agua como dimensión práctica y cultural de los bienes comunes. Una nueva pieza para la serie “Reimaginar, recordar y reclamar el agua: Del extractivismo al procomún”.
October 19, 2021

Autogestión, reclaiming the right to self-management of water

By Marcela Olivera and Stefano Archidiacono Twenty-one years after the Water War in Cochabamba (Bolivia), we reflect on “autogestión” of water as a practical and cultural dimension of the commons. A new piece for the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning”.
July 20, 2021

Where have all the commons gone in Italy? A new podcast

By Emanuele Fantini In Italy, the success of the referendum against water privatisation pushed many social movements to reframe their struggles – on labour, education, debt, land use…. – in the name of the commons. Emanuele Fantini explores the legacy of that season in a podcast, here presented for the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning”.
June 17, 2021

Transforming capitalism? The role of the commons and direct democracy in struggles against water privatisation in Europe.

By Andreas Bieler In his new book “Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe” Andreas Bieler analyses the struggles against water privatization in Europe since the early 1990s. In this post for the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning” he explores to what extent these struggles point towards a potential future beyond capitalism.
May 27, 2021

Commoning through blogging: Reflections on our “Reimagining, remembering and recommoning water” series

By Irene Leonardelli, Gustavo García López and Emanuele Fantini. In two webinars at the IASC 2021 Water Commons Virtual Conference (19-21 May 2021), past and future contributors reflected on the joint UndEnv-FLOWs series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning”.
April 9, 2021

How imaginaries shift in places: Native and settler politics of water and salmon

By Cleo Woelfle-Erskine. The latest installment of the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water” discusses how new eco-cultural imaginaries can emerge from alliances for river restoration between ranchers-conservationists, salmon scientists, and Tribal natural resource staff. 
January 19, 2021

Rooted Water Democracies and Water Justice 

By Jeroen Vos and Rutgerd Boelens. Transnational water movements often mutually complement with place-based forms of collective water management. This may enhance grounded and equitable water provision, and shape political advocacy of common resources control at multiple scales.
November 17, 2020

Not a “wasted” enterprise: political ecologies of wastewater wetlands in Kolkata

By Jenia Mukherjee and Amrita Sen Jenia Mukherjee and Amrita Sen reflect on multiple ways of knowing, experiencing and engaging with wastewater in East Kolkata Wetlands (India). This plurality offers original insights into a provocative question:  is wastewater always toxic, polluting and hazardous? A new post of the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: from extractivism to commoning”.
October 15, 2020

From the commons to extractivism and back: The Story of Mahakam River in Indonesia

By Siti Maimunah and Sarah Agustiorini Increasing pressures from extractive industries on the Mahakam River in Kalimantan,  the second largest river in Indonesia, risk an irreparable destruction of a commons. Yet residents are actively organizing to reclaim the river as a common living space, as Siti Maimunah and Sarah Agustiorini illustrate in this new post of the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: from extractivism to commoning”.
September 15, 2020

Rural and urban, green and red, against eco-austerity

By Patrick Bresnihan. In the fourth essay of the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water”, we learn how understanding some of the common roots of the anti-water charges and beef farmer movements in Ireland, may help us to re-imagine, remember and reclaim a form of environmental politics that is from below, popular, and has justice at its core.