Hydropower development and historic territorial reconfigurations in the Rimac watershed in Lima, Peru

Abstract

The paper analyses how hydropower development in the Rimac watershed in the region of Lima, Peru, has reconfigured hydrosocial relations between the different water users since the 19th century. It shows how the hydropower development was supported and sustained first, by discourses about modernity, civilization and the need to domesticate nature and people through engineering; and second, by an evolving alliance of convenience between the hydropower company and Lima City's drinking water company. Yet, this development has not straight forwardly let to rural communities being deprived of water, but rather to new dependency and power connections that may even provide additional water to local peasants. Recently, the revival of hydropower development in the watershed as well as worries about the adverse effects of climate change stir concerns of rural communities about the distribution of benefits and their position within the ecological and socio-political networks of the Rimac territories.