Producing ethical water: Anti-mining activism and conflicts over municipal water provisioning in Cuenca, Ecuador

Abstract

When gold deposits were confirmed in a community watershed in 2005, water became a politically charged arena for anti-mining activism. This article follows the outcomes of a 2014 Ecuadorian water law on conflicts over water provisioning. Arguments about water's material properties and social qualities were deployed by government, municipal, and local actors in contests over who had legitimate authority to govern rural water systems. Claims about “clean” or “untreated” water—about water as a human right or as ethical solidarity—are invoked in disputes over whether drinking water should be managed by the municipality or the community. I argue that mining conflicts shape the way communities respond to the municipalization of their water supplies, leading to new forms of resource politics encapsulated in the term “ethical water.” The article illustrates the mutual constitution of conflicts over mining and water provisioning and how anti-extractive agendas are shaping Andean water governance.