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The Spatial Politics of Urban Water in Cairo, Egypt

埃及开罗城市水的空间政治

基本信息

批准号：
ES/T008792/1
负责人：
Noura Wahby
金额：
$ 12.6万
依托单位：
University of Cambridge
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2019 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT008792%2F1
关键词：
Spatial Politics Urban Water Cairo

项目摘要

Water scarcity is a controversial issue in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). There are daily water shortages across the region and future scenarios depict water crises and riots reminiscent of the 2011 regional uprisings. My research focuses on how the management and spatial distribution of urban water has become an important site of politics and contestations in the region.My doctoral dissertation studied the spatial politics of water in Egypt and questioned the ways in which traditional frames of water provision associated with the state is not the case in many countries. I explored the question of how water is provided and distributed on three levels.The first is that of the global scale where donors in the MENA region traditionally promote solutions of privatising water as the answer to efficient and equitable distribution. In Egypt, for example, the World Bank and USAID were active in past decades to reform the water sector and only recently were they able to change the state's approach from water as a right, to water as a priced commodity. Some of these interventions include removing water subsidies, increasing the role of the private sector, and following a public discourse of a single official network ideal. These interventions, however, have not alleviated the systemic inequalities of water in the country.My second scale of inquiry interrogates the state's policies and actions that unequally distribute water by prioritising some settlements for public service provision and neglecting others. I found arbitrary decision-making processes at the national scale also reflected locally by its street-level bureaucrats. For example, to implement new water tariffs, local water workers partake in governance regimes of 'guesstimating' what people's water bills should be based on wealth and legality. This arbitrary policymaking process is crucial to understand the disconnect between public policy frameworks and grounded local governance practices that do not adhere to formal regimes.Due to an informalised top down approach, for my third level of water practices, I deconstructed how local communities mobilise and use different types of negotiations and contestations to secure water rights. I found that elites suffering from water shortages use their networks of privilege to secure free tankers from the local government. While marginalized communities, on the other hand, completely bypass the state by installing parallel pipe systems coproduced by members of the neighbourhood and in collusion with the local bureaucracy.My doctoral research results have thus illuminated an under-explored terrain of informal water practices across scales, class and geography, and argues against local mainstream solutions for water privatisation. Building on this research in Egypt, I aim to develop my wider research program on the politics of water in the region. I will focus on questions of urban governance, water and contestation in Beirut, Lebanon. The case of water in Egypt operates in an autocratic environment, whereas Beirut represents a more fragmented and divided city, with a new set of spatial and political relations. For instance, Beirut's municipal managed infrastructure is fractured by sectarianism and state corruption, and only recently, inclusive solidarity movements have organised around water and service provision like the 'Beirut My City' movement.This study is crucial in the MENA context because of the future shortage alerts relating to climate change and also to the fraught political situations in these countries. Global academic literature has remained disconnected and silent on the politics of water which contributed to the 2011 waves of uprising across the region and will continue to play a decisive role in the spatial politics of the region. The fellowship will allow the dissemination of my results from the Egyptian case study, as well as develop my future case study in Beirut.

水资源短缺是中东和北非地区（MENA）的一个有争议的问题。该地区每天都缺水，未来的情景将出现水危机和骚乱，让人想起 2011 年的地区起义。我的研究重点是城市水的管理和空间分配如何成为该地区政治和争论的重要场所。我的博士论文研究了埃及的水空间政治，并质疑与国家相关的传统供水框架在许多国家并非如此。我探讨了如何在三个层面上提供和分配水的问题。第一个是全球范围内的问题，中东和北非地区的捐助者传统上提倡水私有化解决方案，作为高效和公平分配的答案。例如，在埃及，世界银行和美国国际开发署在过去几十年里积极改革水部门，直到最近他们才能够改变国家的做法，从将水作为一种权利，转变为将水作为一种有价商品。其中一些干预措施包括取消水补贴、增强私营部门的作用以及遵循单一官方网络理想的公共话语。然而，这些干预措施并没有缓解该国系统性的水资源不平等。我的第二个调查范围是质疑国家的政策和行动，这些政策和行动通过优先考虑某些定居点提供公共服务而忽视其他定居点来不平等地分配水。我发现全国范围内的任意决策过程也反映在当地的街头官僚身上。例如，为了实施新的水价，当地水务工人参与治理制度，根据财富和合法性“猜测”人们的水费账单。这种任意的决策过程对于理解公共政策框架与不遵守正式制度的扎根的地方治理实践之间的脱节至关重要。由于采用了非正式的自上而下的方法，对于我的第三级水实践，我解构了当地社区如何动员和使用不同类型的谈判和争论来确保水权。我发现遭受水资源短缺的精英们利用他们的特权网络从当地政府那里获得免费的水轮。另一方面，边缘化社区则完全绕过国家，安装由邻居成员共同生产并与当地官僚机构勾结的平行管道系统。因此，我的博士研究成果阐明了跨规模、阶级和地理的非正式水实践的尚未探索的领域，并反对当地主流的水私有化解决方案。在埃及这项研究的基础上，我的目标是制定更广泛的关于该地区水政治的研究计划。我将重点关注黎巴嫩贝鲁特的城市治理、水和争议问题。埃及的水问题是在一个专制的环境中运作的，而贝鲁特则代表着一个更加分散和分裂的城市，具有一套新的空间和政治关系。例如，贝鲁特的市政管理基础设施因宗派主义和国家腐败而支离破碎，直到最近，围绕水和服务提供的包容性团结运动才组织起来，如“贝鲁特我的城市”运动。这项研究在中东和北非地区至关重要，因为未来将发出与气候变化以及这些国家令人担忧的政治局势有关的短缺警报。全球学术文献对水政治仍保持脱节和沉默，水政治促成了 2011 年该地区的起义浪潮，并将继续在该地区的空间政治中发挥决定性作用。该奖学金将使我能够传播埃及案例研究的结果，并发展我未来在贝鲁特的案例研究。