Hydrosocial Territories Research: An Overview

Hydrosocial territories scholarship has contributed to advancing relational, power-sensitive, multiscalar understandings of water and its governance. Grounded in critical water studies, political ecology, and political geography, this scholarship draws attention to how water distributions are contested between different interest groups and their respective notions of how water is and should be governed at multiple interrelated spatial and temporal scales. We provide an overview of the literature on hydrosocial territories with the objective of tracing the development and application of this framework since its introduction in the mid-2010s. The article summarizes how hydrosocial territories research has developed conceptually, methodologically, and thematically. We find that hydrosocial territories research employs largely qualitative methodologies to study water-related disputes surrounding a diversity of themes including hydraulic infrastructures, agricultural production and export, urbanization, river basin management, extractive industries, and conservation. We conclude with a reflection on potential ways forward for hydrosocial territories scholarship.