Working with water citizens: towards an overhaul of water governance

Problems of water insecurity (flooding, drought, pollution, depletion and degradation, lack of access), once seen as symptoms of underdevelopment in the South, are increasingly affecting countries in the North. Traditional "techno-managerial" models of water governance, implemented by state departments or private companies, are proving insufficient to meet these challenges, and often fail to engage in meaningful dialogue with water users and communities. In response to these growing insecurities, citizens' initiatives are emerging across Europe to address water-related issues.

In this workshop, we explore the potential of citizens' initiatives in Europe to reshape water governance. To do so, we draw lessons from the experience of local citizens' initiatives in Montpellier (France) and Ilkley (UK), analyzing them as emerging institutions of collective action, mediating interactions between people and the environment and reshaping citizen-state relations. Our aim is to better understand how people engage with water issues, how citizen-led institutions emerge and evolve, what kinds of environmental and social impacts they generate, and how these processes can be supported and facilitated.

In the workshop, we will also experiment with "gaze inversion", i.e. adapting knowledge and approaches generated in Southern countries to the study of citizen initiatives in Northern countries. By undertaking joint learning with citizen initiatives, we aim to creatively bridge the boundaries between different contexts; between researchers, citizens and water professionals; between scientific and lay knowledge.