Irrigation and social organization in a society in transition to capitalism: The case of the asociación de canalistas del Maipo en Chile (S. XIX)

Abstract

This paper problematizes the privatization of water rights in Chile in historical perspective. Analyzes the configuration of the hegemonic role of the Asociacion de Canalistas del Maipo on the management of irrigation water, as a paradigmatic case that conditioned the structuring of hydrosocial networks in Chile within the process of incorporating the country into world markets. We maintain that the Asociacion de Canalistas del Maipo managed, from a particular historical eventuality (downpours of 1827 on the San Carlos channel), to seize a common good without any counterweight, exercising a despotic power over the irrigation that ended, in the long term, deeply conditioning the relationship between society and water in Chile. We analyze different conflicts around the different strategies of control, administration and access to water used by the association, in order to elucidate the mechanisms that it adopted with the objective of legitimizing and perpetuating its predominance and power.