Epistemic Trajectories and Territorial Governance Alternatives in Transboundary River Basins: an Eco-Hydroterritorial Model from the Global South

This article presents a systematic review of 127 studies (1994–2024) indexed in Scopus and Web of Science on transboundary basin governance. Employing the PRISMA protocol and bibliometric analysis in Gephi, it maps four interacting currents – political ecology, socio-ecological systems, neo-institutionalism, and commons theory – yet finds no consolidated epistemic communities. The mapping highlights shared challenges, including climate change, institutional fragmentation, water disputes, and weak intergovernmental cooperation. However, specific studies advance the integration of scales and actors, functionalist and technocratic frameworks prevail, depoliticising conflicts and concealing territorial assemblages (Foucault, M. 2006. Security, Territory, Population: Course at the Collège de France (1977–1978). Established edition by Michel Senellart; under the direction of François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana; translated by Horacio Pons. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica; Massey, D. 2005. For Space. London: SAGE; Norman, E. S., K. Bakker, and C. Cook. 2012. “Introduction to the Themed Section: Water Governance and the Politics of Scale.” Water Alternatives 5:52–61; Ó Tuathail, G. 1996. Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space. London: Routledge). Addressing these gaps, a situated reading grounded in critical geopolitics and post-structuralism reveals how discourses, territorialities, and power networks configure governance modes in the Global South. Methodological triangulation – encompassing a bibliometric review, historical-documentary analysis, and dialogue with local knowledge – underpins the design of an eco-hydro-territorial governance model for the Colombian Venezuelan binational Pamplonita River basin. The model proposes a multilevel, polycentric arrangement capable of confronting power asymmetries, institutional disarticulation, and neo-extractivist logics masked by developmentalist and state-sovereignty narratives that drive illicit economies, informal urban expansion, and biodiversity loss.