Climate cosmopolitics: Water conflicts and citizenship in the era of climate change in the Peruvian Andes

This project explores the local effects of global climate change and neoliberal economic policies in Peru, and looks at how this is expressed in local knowledge and practices related to water and environment among Quechua-speaking farmers in the Andes. The project's findings are based on an ethnographic fieldwork along the Colca-Majes watershed in the Arequipa region in southern Peru, focusing on the Majes irrigation project, Colca Valley and the headwaters. During the past twenty years, it has become difficult to maintain small-scale organic farming in Colca, because of the effects of climate change and because of the consequences from the liberalization of markets. Peasant farmers in Colca experience unstable seasons, more extreme weather and greater differences in temperatures. The mountaintop glaciers have disappeared, and springs and pastures in the highlands have dried. In the past few years, large parts of the crops in the valley have been lost because of unexpected drought and frost. In the highlands, thousands of alpacas have died because of extreme cold and snowfall. The government has give aid in the form of seeds and medicines, but this does not change the structural conditions that make many farmers abandon their livelihood. Most farmers in Colca and Majes describe agriculture as a lottery where one can win or lose, and there is much insecurity tied to unstable market prices, increased competition and dominance of large-scale producers. In the same period, loans and credits have become more available in order to buy seeds, fertilizers, chemical pesticides and growth hormones. Many peasant farmers abandon farming, and many move to the large city of Arequipa or to Villa El Pedregal, in Majes to find a job in agribusiness or in the informal economy. Those who stay shift to new types of seeds and potatoes, and many have started cultivating quinoa, which is resistant against climatic changes and which demand has skyrocketed in the global market. Some farmers have succeeded in buying land in Majes, where the climate is more stable. The Majes irrigation project has changed ecological and socioeconomic relations along the Majes-Colca watershed. Water from the Condoroma Dam, at 4000 meters of altitude, has since 1982 been sent through the Majes Canal that goes along Colca River and down to Majes, which has been transformed from an infertile desert to a center of agriculture, dairy production and export of food products. From the 1980s, 2600 families have received land in Majes, and the place is today characterized by a fast population growth and a pulsating economy. However, many experience uncertainty because of the lack of infrastructure and safe drinking water, as well as continuous land occupations (squatting) and land conflicts in the surrounding desert areas. With climate change and drought in the highlands, the population in Majes is increasingly aware of their own vulnerability, since they are entirely dependent on the water from the highlands. This was one reason the farmers' water user organization started to contribute financially to the preservation of the headwater environment. Organizations in the highlands have claimed that farmers in Majes have a moral duty to contribute to the maintenance of the environment where the water originates. These demands are based on ideas of reciprocity, mutual responsibility and ownership to water, which is seen both as an economic resource and as a living substance belonging to the mountains and the springs. A new kind of claim was also observed during the project's fieldwork: alpaca farmers in Callalli - the district where the Condoroma Dam is located - demand access to land in Majes. They justify this demand by claiming ownership to the water that gives life to Majes; i.e. the water belongs to their territory, where the mountains are guardians and owners of land and water, which is given as gifts to the people living there. This way of understanding ownership and property exceeds the established categories of individual-collective, human-environment, private-public, commons-commodity, and subject-object. Mountains, earth and water are seen as living beings that participate in social life and should be respected. An important practice is therefore to offer gifts to the mountains to keep the water flowing. There are different ways to maintain relations to the mountains through offerings and rituals that acquire renewed meaning in today's world where global warming and climate change is part of the reality. These relationships and practices also acquire new relevance and significance when they are performed in public space in collaboration with more political actors and authorities. When practices like these expand the space of what is accepted as legitimate demands and rights and of what politics is, we could call them cosmopolitical practices. I call this dynamics 'climate cosmopolitics'.

This project explores the intersections of climate change, economy, cosmologies and citizenship in the Peruvian Andes. Peru´s economy is one of the fastest growing in Latin America, in great part due to the mining industry. Yet, large parts of the populat ion, especially indigenous people in the Andean highlands, are still excluded from this growth, and find themselves increasingly vulnerable in terms of global warming and water scarcity. Although Peru contribute very little of the world's carbon dioxide e missions, global warming is producing observable effects on temperature, precipitation, seasonality, glacier retreat and water supply. Conflicts over water have intensified during the last few years, and social movements not only question economic and env ironmental policies, but also issues of social exclusion and inclusion, gender equality and citizenship. An important concern will be to investigate the effects of global climate change on local environments, economic life, political organizations, and cu ltural practices, and explore how people - differentiated by age, gender, and class - cope and respond to changes. Taking as a premise that climate changes cannot be understood separately from economic vulnerability, political unrest, and a sense of risk affecting everyday life, the results will be critically analyzed in terms of vulnerability, adaptation, and local knowledge. Building upon 8 months of previous fieldwork, the study will be conducted in three localities in the Colca-Majes-Camaná watershed in Arequipa region: a poor herding community in the headwater basin; a province capital and administrative center; and a new town in the Majes pampa, which has developed over the last 30 years due to water channeled from the highlands and migrants coming to seek economic progress. By exploring the economic, political, and moral negotiations between these places, I will investigate how cosmopolitical claims are articulated, and how citizenship is produced.