Date of Award
5-12-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Geography & the Environment
Advisor(s)
Thomas Perreault
Subject Categories
Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
This dissertation explores the water crisis in El Salvador, a small Central American country surrounded by abundant freshwater resources that is nonetheless plagued with chronic water shortages, contaminated drinking water, and expensive water bills. For nearly two decades, competing groups pursued water legislation intended to address these multi-faceted issues. Finally, in December 2021, President Nayib Bukele codified the Law of Water Resources, bringing the protracted struggle to a conclusion. Yet a few years later, water issues persist, and no one is satisfied with the policy. I approach this issue through the perspective of five different social groups: the environmental movement, the intelligentsia, the labor movement, the state, and the business community. In this study, I seek to understand how each group articulates water justice, and how these interpretations inform approaches to water governance. I argue that attempts made by some social groups to codify water justice were unsuccessful because they didn’t sufficiently link water injustice to the everyday desperation and anxiety of chronic service interruptions coupled with high bills that poor and working-class Salvadorans receive. Rather than articulate water justice as a productive approach to delivering dependable and affordable water services, the environmental movement, intelligentsia, and businesses emphasized the need for representation and participation in the deliberative process that informs water policy. Analyzing the Salvadoran water crisis through the trajectories of these social groups reveals uneven burdens across the Salvadoran waterscape, and insights into comfort, health, everyday economic anxiety, workplace grievances, and solidarity.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Diaz-Combs, Claudia Isabel, ""When the water stops but the bills never do”: Contentious water politics and collective action in El Salvador" (2024). Dissertations - ALL. 1945.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/1945
