Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ORIGINSOFSCARCITY (Origins of Scarcity: Labour and the Metabolism of Groundwater in the Doñana Socioecological System)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31
ORIGINSOFSCARCITY explores the dynamics underlying aquifer depletion through a focus on agricultural labour in export-oriented water intensive farming. My research focused on the case of groundwater conflicts in Doñana. Espacio Natural Doñana (“Doñana Natural Space”, END) is a protected area located in southwestern Spain that expands across three western provinces of Andalusia. END incorporates two different protection figures, the Doñana national park and the Doñana natural park. Additionally, it is a designated Ramsar site since 1982, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1995) and Biosphere Reserve and it is included in the Natura 2000 network.The entirety of END lies above an aquifer the boundaries of which overflow those of the park. Known as the “Almonte-Marismas aquifer”, this approximately 3400 km² system corresponds to an unconfined aquifer in the western part of the protected area and a part confined under the clay deposits of the eastern floodplains. To the nortwest of END expands a string of municipalities that are integrated into Europe’s most important berry production area. This is the area where current groundwater conflicts are concentrated. The province of Huelva encloses Europe’s most important strawberry cultivation area, Europe’s first raspberry production area and the second blueberry production area, rendering it one of the world’s most important berry exporting regions. Berry production in this area is dependent on irrigation; to the northwest of END this is mostly groundwater extracted from the same aquifer that ensures the presence of lagoons in the protected area. Attempts to curtail water use have been ineffective and presently the scientific consensus is that the compounded effects of water abstraction and drought have resulted in severe ecological disturbances.The project took as its starting point the failure of a protected area enjoying the most important national and international conservation designations to prevent a crisis of ecological reproduction. Its central aim was to understand the alteration of Doñana’s waterscape and why existing conservation policy has failed to contain the effects of irrigated agriculture. This aim was pursued through three specific research objectives:
(1) an account of changes in the availability of water supplies and the technological conditions that regulate the conversion of existing water resources into an agricultural input
(2) an account of the intensification of groundwater use in relation to transformations in the local labour market
(3) an analysis of the interaction between nature conservation and economic activities associated with strawberry farming
(1) an account of changes in the availability of water supplies and the technological conditions that regulate the conversion of existing water resources into an agricultural input
(2) an account of the intensification of groundwater use in relation to transformations in the local labour market
(3) an analysis of the interaction between nature conservation and economic activities associated with strawberry farming
In order to complete these specific research objectives I relied on a methodological approach that combined interviews, participant observation, archival research and textual analysis. Between the fall of 2021 and the summer of 2022 long-term fieldwork was carried out in the Doñana region. Conclusions indicate that:
(1) Groundwater depletion is not properly understood as the result of a conflict between economic development and environmental protection; the regional agricultural model has deepened existing ties of dependency and struggles to contain both its ecological and social consequences.
(2)While a “mismatch” between scaling to an environmental space and scaling to jurisdictional spaces characterizes the case of Doñana, it cannot be resolved by a redrawing of spatial boundaries.
(3) Ethnographic research reveals the existence of a coalition of regional interests that coordinates the production of labour and the production of water as agrarian inputs; this coalition lays the condition for the import of both, through water transfers in the case of water and “contracting in the country of origin” in the case of labour.
(4) Alternative attempts to integrate agriculture and conservation by stressing the importance of community-level management have glossed over power dynamics at the local level and they fail to consider as environmental subjects those most affected by the extractive characteristics of the existing agricultural model.
(5) We are currently witnessing a reconfiguration of the conflict between agriculture and conservation as lands that lose their use value because of water scarcity are revalorized through processes of ecological valuation. In this most recent phase of the conflict, rather than accumulating water rights, farmers will be more likely to trade fictitious water rights through land sales; while there is no formal market in water rights, the existing conservation model contributes to the provisional, speculative emergence of one.
The project has so far resulted in a book proposal, a submitted and published article, an article under review, a book chapter under review. Additional publications are in preparation. The project has also resulted in an international conference and a workshop and six invited lectures and conference presentations. The project has fulfilled its commitment to communicate project findings to different target audiences through a variety of activities, including presentations in local and regional non-academic events. The project’s commitment to the communication of research findings in a format accessible to ordinary citizens and non-academic stakeholders has been also fulfilled through the elaboration of a multimedia project. “Echoes of Doñana: audio cartography of a socio-ecological conflict” presents the territorialization of the Doñana conflict through an interactive multimedia cartography (available at www.originsofscarcity.com).
(1) Groundwater depletion is not properly understood as the result of a conflict between economic development and environmental protection; the regional agricultural model has deepened existing ties of dependency and struggles to contain both its ecological and social consequences.
(2)While a “mismatch” between scaling to an environmental space and scaling to jurisdictional spaces characterizes the case of Doñana, it cannot be resolved by a redrawing of spatial boundaries.
(3) Ethnographic research reveals the existence of a coalition of regional interests that coordinates the production of labour and the production of water as agrarian inputs; this coalition lays the condition for the import of both, through water transfers in the case of water and “contracting in the country of origin” in the case of labour.
(4) Alternative attempts to integrate agriculture and conservation by stressing the importance of community-level management have glossed over power dynamics at the local level and they fail to consider as environmental subjects those most affected by the extractive characteristics of the existing agricultural model.
(5) We are currently witnessing a reconfiguration of the conflict between agriculture and conservation as lands that lose their use value because of water scarcity are revalorized through processes of ecological valuation. In this most recent phase of the conflict, rather than accumulating water rights, farmers will be more likely to trade fictitious water rights through land sales; while there is no formal market in water rights, the existing conservation model contributes to the provisional, speculative emergence of one.
The project has so far resulted in a book proposal, a submitted and published article, an article under review, a book chapter under review. Additional publications are in preparation. The project has also resulted in an international conference and a workshop and six invited lectures and conference presentations. The project has fulfilled its commitment to communicate project findings to different target audiences through a variety of activities, including presentations in local and regional non-academic events. The project’s commitment to the communication of research findings in a format accessible to ordinary citizens and non-academic stakeholders has been also fulfilled through the elaboration of a multimedia project. “Echoes of Doñana: audio cartography of a socio-ecological conflict” presents the territorialization of the Doñana conflict through an interactive multimedia cartography (available at www.originsofscarcity.com).
Differently from existing approaches, the project reveals the ways in which the existing agro-industrial model draws on, reproduces and magnifies existing inequalities. Rather than a side-effect of market pressure on farmers, ORIGINSOFSCARCITY shows that the extractive characteristics of the regional agricultural model are produced from “above” as well as from “below”. The creation of legally sanctioned unfree wage labour (feminized and racialized) is a multi-scalar, coordinated and institutionalized process upon which the resource intensity of the agro-industrial model depends. Additionally, the findings of the project show that existing attempts to reorient agriculture towards environmental sustainability centralize the farmer as agent of change, thus invisibilizing the centrality of agricultural wage labour to agrarian transition and marginalizing it as a social actor. Similarly, conservation-based initiatives prioritize “traditional agriculture” and “community conservation” as pathways to sustainability, resulting in a glossing over of power relations at the local level. Finally, ORIGINSOFSCARCITY identifies coalitions around water as different from those that take as their departure point agricultural relations of production and nature conservation.This suggests the need for an alternative to both protected area models and existing “conservation with use” approaches. ORIGINSOFSCARCITY provides a new perspective on one of Europe’s most prominent groundwater conflicts. It directly addresses European policy objectives related to sustainable water use, agricultural and conservation policy. The project tackles a problem of extreme relevance beyond the academic community, the equitable use of water resources and the integration of social and environmental justice and provides an innovative approach to the "agriculture-environment conversation".