Licenses, canals, and landscapes: Tracing the limits of state control and legibility through irrigation megaprojects and formal water rights

Abstract

State-led hydraulic infrastructures and water rights formalization programs are powerful tools for controlling water, shaping landscapes, and organizing nature and society. However, the degree of legibility and regulation achieved through infrastructure is very uneven. Using semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and water rights analysis, this research examines how the Majes-Siguas Special Project (PEMS) in southwestern Peru and associated water licenses modified agricultural landscapes and intensified state presence and water control in different ways in highland and lowland locations along the main irrigation canal. It also shows how disparate state-farmer relations are forged as effects of the project and accompanying policies. By engaging with the works of James C. Scott and Timothy Mitchell, this research valorizes a view of the modern state as both an agent and an effect of its relationships with nature and society.