Hydraulic heroes: The ironies of utopian hydraulism and its politics of autonomy in the Guadalhorce Valley, Spain

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 41, Issue , 2013, Pages 44-58

  Boelens, Rutgerd ^a,b   Post Uiterweer, Nynke C ^a  

^a WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

^b PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DEL PERÚ   (Peru)

Author keywords

Hydraulic policy; Hydraulism; Irrigation; Regenerationism; Self governance; Spain; Utopia

Indexed keywords

AUTONOMY; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; IRRIGATION SYSTEM; NINETEENTH CENTURY; PLANNING HISTORY; SELF GOVERNMENT; TWENTIETH CENTURY; WATER MANAGEMENT; WATER PLANNING; WATER USE;

ANDALUCIA; GUADALHORCE BASIN; MALAGA [ANDALUCIA]; SPAIN;

EID: 84879592191     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: 10958614     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhg.2012.12.005     Document Type: Article

References (119)

1. J.Costa, Política Hidráulica. Misión social de los riegos en España, Madrid, 1911, 1.
2. S.L. Driever, "And since heaven has filled Spain with goods and gifts": Lucas Mallada, the Regenerationist movement, and the Spanish environment, 1881e90, Journal of Historical Geography 24 (1998) 36e52;
3. E.Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape 1890e1930, in: K.S. Zimmerer and T. Basset (Eds), Political Ecology: An Integrative Approach to Geography and Environment-Development Studies, New York, 2003, 94e112;
4. J.Silvestre and E. Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects: a comparison of two case studies of the Ebro basin, Spain, 1900e2001, Journal of Historical Geography 36 (2010) 315e326.
5. A.Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social: orígenes, etapas y significados del regeneracionismo de Joaquín Costa, Agricultura y Sociedad 32 (1984) 11e107.
6. C.Martín Gaite, El Conde del Guadalhorce. Su época y su labor, Madrid, 2003, 166.5 See, for example, the debates in this journal, on Canada: M. Evenden, Precarious foundations: irrigation, environment, and social change in the Canadian Pacific Railway's Eastern Section, 1900e1930, Journal of Historical Geography 32 (2006) 74e95; Australia:
7. J.M. Powell, Environment and institutions: three episodes in Australian water management, 1880e2000, Journal of Historical Geography 28 (2002) 100e114; and the USA: M. Lane,Water, technology, and the courtroom: negotiating reclamation policy interritorial New Mexico, Journal of Historical Geography, 37 (2011) 300e311. See also D. Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water Growth and the American West, New York, 1985 and M. Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West, Seattle, 1999.
8. D. Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water Growth and the American West, New York, 1985 and M. Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West, Seattle, 1999.
9. See e.g., Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3); Driever, Lucas Mallada (note 2); Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape (note 2);
10. E.Swyngedouw, Techno-natural revolutions: the scalar politics of Franco's hydro-social dream for Spain, 1939e1975, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32 (2007) 9e28; Silvestre and Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects (note 2).
11. As in Latin America. See J. Maurice and C. Serrano, J. Costa: crisis de la restauración y populismo (1875e1911), Madrid, 1977.
12. Between 1998 and 2011 we have been conducting annual research visits to the Guadalhorce Valley. Much of this research was done interactively with local water distributors, officers and irrigating families, especially in the upper basin. The quotes in this section are drawn from conversations carried out during our field surveys in 2010 and 2011
13. M.Bermúdez and P. Martín, Los pueblos nacidos del agua, Málaga, 2007.
14. J. Brotons Pazos, El Embalse del Chorro, un hito en la política hidráulica en el umbral del siglo XX, Málaga, 1999, 124.
15. See also A. Malpica Cuello, El agua en la agricultura de Al-Andalus, Almería, 1995.
16. The aguador is a local water distributor, employed by water users themselves.
17. The term caño, in Guadalhorce, refers to the irrigation turn (shift), to the hydraulic inlet gates, and to a measurement unit of approximately 25 l/s (a common field flow for watering sugarcane).
18. No precise data exist regarding the total area irrigated before the large dams were built. Brotons Pazos provides an estimate of 4,000e5,000 ha (Brotons Pazos, El Embalse del Chorro (note 10), 109).
19. Public Report, 19 Nov. 1831, cited by B. Abelenda Fernández, El lobo y la oveja, Málaga, 1944, 22.
20. Coín Community Report, 23 November 1831, in Libro del Cabildo, Coín, 20 January 1832.
21. Libro del Cabildo, Coín, 2 December 1835.
22. Libro del Cabildo, Coín, 21 August 1864.
23. The 'Hojas Parroquiales' (parish documents) of Alora of 1823, 1861 and 1876 also refer to these mills and their respective locations (Alora Library; see also S. Lara Centella, El Chorro: 100 años de historia, álora, 2002, 8).
24. See, e.g., P. Pérez Gómez, El patrimonio industrial de Alora, Málaga, 1997
25. S. van der Kooij, Guadalhorce Watershed. Justicia Hídrica Research Report. Wageningen, 2010, 14.
26. Fanega: ancient area unit (1 fanega-6444 m2).
27. Coín community report 21 December 1829, cited by B. Abelenda Fernández, El Lobo y la Oveja (note 15).
28. Although some main rural centres and their Alcaldes de Agua did consolidate them formally in the late eighteenth century. In certain cases, officials commanded irrigation, as in 1793 when the corregidor "changed usage turns by vegetable growers and millers, granting farmers priority in water use" (Bermúdez and Martin, Los pueblos nacidos del agua (note 9).
29. Brotons Pazos, El Embalse del Chorro (note 10).
30. Internationally known as River Basin Authorities.
31. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 23, 24.
32. See also Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7); Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3); Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape (note 2).
33. Bermúdez and Martin, Los pueblos nacidos del agua (note 9).
34. The originally projected area (21.600 ha) was finally, in 1999, reduced to 10,500 ha; see Brotons Pazos, El Embalse del Chorro (note 10), 113.
35. Lara Centella, El Chorro (note 19).
36. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 55. See also Lara Centella, El Chorro (note 19), 19.
37. See also Brotons Pazos, El Embalse del Chorro (note 10).
38. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 23.
39. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 14.
40. Benjumea, 1951 in Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 21.
41. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 24.
42. Lara Centella, El Chorro (note 19); Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4).
43. M.Merino, Hizo historia, 2002, 64 http://hispaga.cedex.es/sites/default/files/hispagua_articulo/ambienta/n8/articulo10.pdf.
44. Lorenzo Pardo spoke of 'hyper-regulation' through 'hyper-reservoirs' as the supreme aim of scientific water modernization, in: E. Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers to Desalting the Seas: Water, Modernity and Power in Spain, 1898e2010, Cambridge, forthcoming.
45. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 79.
46. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 79.
47. Lara Centella, El Chorro (note 19), 20.
48. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 85.
49. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7); I. Sánchez, Rafael Gasset y la política hidráulica de la Restauración, 1900e1923, Revista de Historia Económica 15 (1997) 319e362.
50. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3); J. Gómez Mendoza, Regeneracionismo y regadíos, in: A. Gil Ocina and A. Morales Gil (Eds), Hitos históricos de los regadíos españoles, Madrid, 1992, 231e262.
51. In Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 66.
52. Besides Spain (also see Driever, Lucas Mallada (note 2); Silvestre and Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects (note 2), other countries also practiced policies of 'interior colonization' through large-scale irrigation development at that time; see e.g., Worster, Rivers of Empire (note 5); Fiege, Irrigated Eden (note 5); Powell, Environment and institutions (note 5); Evenden, Precarious foundations (note 5); Lane, Water, technology, and the courtroom (note 5).
53. In Gómez Mendoza, Regeneracionismo y regadíos (note 46), 233.
54. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7)
55. Costa, Política Hidráulica (note 1), 3, 6.
56. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 57.
57. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 25; Cf. Silvestre and Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects (note 2).
58. J.Costa, La vida del derecho: ensayo sobre el derecho consuetudinario. Zaragoza, 1892, quoted in Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 11.
59. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 55.
60. In Gómez Mendoza, Regeneracionismo y regadíos (note 46), 233e234.
61. R.Macías Picavea, La Tierra de los Campos, Madrid, 1896, 217.
62. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 93; Regenerationist thinker Lucas Mallada, who wrote the document 'La pobreza de nuestro suelo' (later republished in his Los males de la Patria, 1888), strongly supported Costa's thinking on improving 'land and race' through hydraulic development (see Driever, Lucas Mallada (note 2).
63. See Sánchez, Rafael Gasset (note 45).
64. A.Mulberger, M. Vilaró, F. Tirado and M. Domenech, Historia política y ciencia: el papel de los expertos en el debate sobreagua en España, (2005), 7. www.recercat.net/handle/2072/1495.
65. Mulberger, Vilaró, Tirado, Domenech, Historia política y ciencia (note 61).
66. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 76.
67. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 78.
68. Plato, The Republic, Book VII, Indianapolis, 1992, 186e194.
69. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 120.
70. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 14.
71. See, among others: H. Achterhuis, De Utopie van de Vrije Markt [The Free Market Utopia], Rotterdam, 2010; J. Gray, Black Mass. Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, London, 2007.
72. H. Achterhuis, R. Boelens and M. Zwarteveen, Water property relations and modern policy regimes: Neoliberal utopia and the disempowerment of collective action, in: R. Boelens, D. Getches and A. Guevara (Eds), Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity, London, New York, 2010, 29.
73. Achterhuis, Boelens and Zwarteveen, Water property relations and modern policy regimes (note 69).
74. In Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 18.
75. Costa, Política Hidráulica (note 1), 3. Earlier Mallada also called "...
76. remaking the country's geography an unavoidable necessity..." e by means of dams and canals (see Driever, Lucas Mallada (note 2), 45.
77. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 18e19.
78. Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape (note 2). Cf. J. Linton, What is Water? The History of a Modern Abstraction, Vancouver, 2010;
79. Furlong, Book review. What is water?; J. Linton, Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 250e251.
80. In Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 72.
81. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 94.
82. M. Lorenzo Pardo, La Confederación del Ebro: nueva política hidráulica, Madrid, 1930, 100.
83. Silvestre and Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects (note 2).
84. See Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7).
85. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 19.
86. Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers (note 40).
87. J. Costa, Oligarquía y caciquismo. Colectivismo agrario y otros escritos. Madrid, 1967, 86; J. Costa, Política quirúrgica, Madrid, 1914.
88. Martín Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 31.
89. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 111. Costa, disappointed, even imagined promoting physiological technology to create homo europaeus through 'neuroculture'. Latin American dictatorships later incorporated similar notions through 'shock therapy' (N. Klein, The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, New York, 2007.) e to de- and re-pattern individuals and whole societies (cf. Achterhuis, Boelens, Zwarteveen, Water property relations and modern policy regimes (note 69)).
90. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 167 (and following quote).
91. Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, Ithaca, 1989, 113; Powell, Environment and institutions (note 5); Evenden, Precarious foundations (see note 5).
92. Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape (note 2), 105; E. Swyngedouw, Book review. Provincia, regiones y comunidadesautónomas: La formación del mapapolítico de España; J. García Alvarez, Journal of Historical Geography (2003),http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jhge.2003.0571.
93. Swyngedouw, Modernity and the production of the Spanish waterscape (note 2), 108, 109: 'At each stage, engineers were regenerationist leaders and activists, combining their legitimization as holders of scientific knowledge and insights with their privileged position as an elite political corps within the State apparatus'.
94. In Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers (note 40).
95. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 50.
96. Reasons include increased competition for water, reduced user-management capacity, and increased hydraulic and institutional inflexibility (also see N.C. Post Uiterweer and R. Boelens, Vigilantes. The Heart of Water Control, Wageningen, forthcoming).
97. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 49.
98. Ortí, Política hidráulica y cuestión social (note 3), 91. See also J. Costa, La tierra y la cuestión social, Madrid, 1912.
99. Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers (note 40).
100. Silvestre and Clar, The demographic impact of irrigation projects (note 2), 318.
101. Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers (note 40).
102. Costa 1901, in: A. Gil Novales, Derecho y revolución en el pensamiento de Costa, Madrid, 1965.
103. J. Costa, Derecho consuetudinario y economía popular de España, Zaragoza, 1981.
104. Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 126.
105. Costa in Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 179.
106. R. Boelens, The politics of disciplining water rights, Development and Change 40 (2009) 307e331; Cf. Lane, Water, technology, and the courtroom (note 5).
107. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 170.
108. Sánchez, Rafael Gasset (note 45), 358.
109. Mulberger et al., Historiapolítica y ciencia (note 61), 9.
110. Mulberger et al., Historiapolítica y ciencia (note 61), 9.
111. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 52
112. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 52.
113. Martín-Gaite, El Conde (note 4), 67.
114. Costa said that, because of its profound illness for four centuries, the nation, "cannot now think of giving rise to new societies abroad... but should move to colonize itself, rather than colonizing unknown, savage regions" (in Maurice and Serrano, J. Costa (note 7), 65).
115. Swyngedouw, Techno-natural revolutions (note 6), 12.
116. Swyngedouw, From Manufacturing Rivers (note 40).
117. A. Estevan, Herencias y problemas de la política hidráulica española, Bilbao, 2008, 22.
118. Swyngedouw, Techno-natural revolutions (note 6), 12.
119. Post Uiterweer and Boelens, Vigilantes (note 91).