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This thesis is the result of a multidisciplinary research which tries to explain water injustices and the threats to water rights access and control experienced by indigenous peasants of the Peruvian Andes. It attempts to contribute to the analysis of the interactions between ethnicity and gender, and to understand how these form an intrinsic part of the contemporary ethno-politics of water. It also critically analyses the role of state interventions and international financial aid programmes in irrigation development and peasant communities. For the purposes of this research, ethnography and ethno-history, complemented by data generated by means of action-research and an intensive literature study of records written by Spanish and indigenous chroniclers, have been used. Through the presentation and analysis of these written sources, and by carefully mapping and documenting existing water practices in the communities of the Colca Valley, located in the southern Andes of Peru, the thesis shows how water has played a role not only in livelihood strategies but also in shaping cultural identity and the socio-organizational and political dynamics of communities. Water has constituted a central resource in defining and re-defining ethnicity and gender in the Andes. Conversely, ethnicity and gender have also been constitutive elements of fair and secure access to water by supporting and creating power asymmetries and hierarchies in Andean communities throughout Peruvian history. The thesis shows how irrigation policies and interventions have created spaces and opportunities both for inclusion and exclusion, for contestation and struggles, as well as for the empowerment of marginalized people.
Keywords: ethno-politics, water security, ethnicity, gender, water rights, cultural politics, modernization, irrigation development, large-scale irrigation, alternative development and resistance.
