An azud on the Serpis River (Source: Ana María Arbeláez-Trujillo, 2022).
Azudes along the Serpis River: Cultural Heritage, Obstacles and Contested Authority

Authors

  • Ana María Arbeláez-Trujillo Wageningen University
  • Juliana Forigua-Sandoval Wageningen University

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.2.11

Abstract

Preserving cultural heritage and achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of protecting life below water do not always go hand in hand. The case of the Serpis River sheds light on the political, cultural and legal tensions that may arise when pursuing these two policy goals. To better understand these tensions, we propose acknowledging that rivers are complex natural-cultural systems imagined and shaped through various actors’ values, interests, practices and infrastructures (Boelens et al. 2016). River restoration initiatives generate divisions between actors and institutions with different ways of defining and valuing natural and cultural heritage.

How to Cite

Arbeláez-Trujillo, A. M., & Forigua-Sandoval, J. (2023). Azudes along the Serpis River: Cultural Heritage, Obstacles and Contested Authority. Blue Papers, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.2.11

Published

2023-11-09

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2023): Water & Heritage for Sustainable Development

Section

methodologies and case studies

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Ana María Arbeláez-Trujillo, Juliana Forigua-Sandoval

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biographies

Ana María Arbeláez-Trujillo, Wageningen University

Ana María Arbeláez-Trujillo is a PhD researcher at Wageningen University. She is part of the Riverhood project funded by the European Research Council under the EU’s Horizon 2020 program. Her research combines political ecology and critical legal studies to understand how hydroelectric projects and other water infrastructures impact riverine and rural communities and how these communities mobilize plural sources of law to defend rivers and advance environmental justice. She is a lawyer from Universidad de Caldas and a specialist in environmental Law from Universidad del Rosario. She holds an MA in Public Policy from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI).

Juliana Forigua-Sandoval, Wageningen University

Juliana Forigua-Sandoval is a PhD researcher at Wageningen University. She is part of the River Commons project funded by the Wageningen University’s INREF-Fund. Her research is about restoration strategies, temporalities and territorialization processes of fisher communities in the Magdalena River (Colombia) with a political ecology perspective. She is a philosopher from Universidad del Rosario with a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies of development from Universidad de los Andes.

References

Boelens, Rutgerd. 2011. “Luchas y defensas escondidas. Pluralismo legal y cultural como una práctica de resistencia creativa en la gestión local del agua en los Andes” [Hidden struggles and defences. Legal and cultural pluralism as a creative resistance practice in local andean water management]. Anuario de Estudios Americanos 68, no. 2: 673–703. https://doi.org/10.3989/AEAMER.2011.V68.I2.554.

Boelens, Rutgerd, Arturo Escobar, Karen Bakker, Lena Hommes, Erik Swyngedouw, Barbara Hogenboom, Edward H. Huijbens et al. 2022. “Riverhood: Political Ecologies of Socionature Commoning and Translocal Struggles for Water Justice.” Journal of Peasant Studies 50, no. 3: 1125–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120810.

Boelens, Rutgerd, Jaime Hoogesteger, Erik Swyngedouw, Jeroen Vos and Philippus Wester. 2016. “Hydrosocial Territories: A Political Ecology Perspective.” Water International 41, no. 1: 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2016.1134898.

Boelens, Rutgerd, and Margreet Zwarteveen. 2005. “Anomalous Water Rights and the Politics of Normalization: Collective Water Control and Privatization Policies in the Andean Region.” In Liquid Relations Contested Water Rights and Legal Complexity, edited by Dik Roth, Rutgerd Boelens and Margreet Zwa, 97–123. London: Rutgers University Press.

Garófano-Gómez, Virginia. 2019. Investigación Sobre Los Rasgos Funcionales de La Vegetación de Ribera Del Río Serpis a Lo Largo de Un Gradiente Longitudinal: Desde Beniarrés al Mar [Analysis of the functional traits of the River Serpis riverbank vegetation along a longitudinal gradient: From Beniarres to the sea]. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03168407/.

Hommes, Lena. 2022. “The Ageing of Infrastructure and Ideologies: Contestations around Dam Removal in Spain.” Water Alternatives 15, no. 3: 592–613. https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol15/v15issue3/674-a15-3-3/file.

Sapena, Sergi. 2021a. “La CHJ Fuerza a Villalonga a Retirar Un Azud Para ‘Naturalizar’ El Serpis” [The CHJ forces Villalonga to remove a dam to ‘naturalize’ the Serpis]. El Levante, June 10, 2021. https://www.levante-emv.com/safor/2021/06/10/chj-sorprende-villalonga-orden-retirar-52812166.html.

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