Between Water Abundance and Scarcity: Discourses, Biofuels, and Power in Piura, Peru

In 2006, transnational ethanol corporations arrived in Chira, a semi-arid zone located in the Piura region of northern Peru. Large expanses of land were used to produce sugarcane for ethanol, which triggered local concern over the pressure this would mean on the regional water balance. From political ecology, I examine how the state and a corporation produced discourses on the idea of water abundance in the Chira Basin in order to secure water rights, which increased the risk of water scarcity for small communities, pastoralists and farmers in the region. In doing so, I call attention to the discursive strategies aimed to facilitate processes of dispossession under a technical ethos that reinforce capital accumulation. Finally, I argue that water abundance discourses contributed to produce a “waterscape” that not only produced unsustainable water use but also reinforced social inequalities.