Neoliberal water politics and the production of unequal territories in southern Peru

This paper examines how different forms of resources extraction reshape water governance and produce territories of scarcity in southern Peru. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the regions of Ica (2014–2016) and Tacna (2018–2020), I analyze how agribusiness and mining companies deploy distinct strategies of water control that generate similar patterns of unequal access. In Ica, export-oriented agribusiness has expanded into desert areas by depleting aquifers and diverting highland water sources, while in Tacna, copper mining appropriate high-quality water from highland lakes while externalizing environmental impacts. Though these industries employ different technical and institutional mechanisms to secure water access, both rely on sustainability narratives that frame local communities’ water use as inefficient while legitimizing corporate water accumulation. I develop the concept of ’territories of scarcity’ to explain how extractive industries produce water scarcity not merely as a physical condition, but as a socio-political construction that justifies further resource concentration. The comparative analysis reveals how different forms of extraction can generate similar patterns of inequality through distinct configurations of infrastructure, institutions, and legitimizing discourses. These findings contribute to our understanding of how extractive industries reshape resource governance while highlighting the need to examine how distinct types of extraction produce uneven development through particular modes of environmental transformation.