Engaging water citizens: the potential for reshaping water governance

Problems of water insecurity (floods, droughts, pollution, depletion and degradation, lack of access), once considered to be symptoms of underdevelopment in the global south, increasingly affect countries of the global north. Mainstream ‘techno-managerial’ models of water governance, delivered through state departments or private companies, are proving insufficient to address these challenges and often fail to engage with water users and communities in meaningful ways. In response to these growing insecurities, citizens’ initiatives are emerging across Europe to address water concerns.

In this workshop we explore the potential of citizens’ initiatives in Europe to reshape water governance. To do this we learn from the experience of local citizens’ initiatives in Montpellier (France) and Ilkley (UK), analysing them as emergent institutions of collective action, mediating people-environment interactions, and reshaping citizen-state relations. We aim to better understand how people become engaged with water issues, how citizen-led institutions emerge and evolve, what kind of environmental and social impacts they generate, and how these processes can be supported and facilitated.

In the workshop we will also experiment with ‘reversing the gaze’; adapting knowledge and approaches generated in the global south, to the study of citizen initiatives in the global north. By undertaking joint learning with the citizen initiatives, we aim to creatively bridge boundaries between different contexts; between researchers, citizens’ and water professionals; between scientific and lay knowledge.