@article{fdi:010070208,
  title = {{T}he (re) turn to infrastructure for water management ?},
  author = {{C}row-{M}iller, {B}. and {W}ebber, {M}. and {M}olle, {F}ran{\c{c}}ois},
  editor = {},
  language = {{ENG}},
  abstract = {{T}his paper introduces the papers in this special issue and uses them as evidence through which to examine four questions. {F}irst: are we witnessing a widespread (re) turn to big infrastructure projects for water management? {T}he evidence suggests that large-scale infrastructure development has remained largely unswayed by the 'ecological turn', or the promotion of demand management or 'soft path' thinking, despite a drop in investments observed at the turn of the 20th century. {S}econd: do these new projects have different justifications from those of the past? {T}he papers in this issue provide evidence that the need to justify capital-intensive infrastructure in the face of commitments to sustainability, while borrowing from the conventional grammar of project justifications, has generated a few innovative tropes and rhetorical devices. {T}hird: what does a (re) turn (or enduring commitment) to big infrastructure tells us about the governance and wider politics of large-scale infrastructure problems? {S}ome of the traditional interest groups are well represented in the stories told here the corporations that demand water or compete to build pipes and dams; the large-scale irrigators that rely on water to expand their production; the engineers and consultants who seek money, prestige, career advancement or even satisfaction from 'controlling' nature; the politicians who can extract 'rents' from all this activity. {E}ven so, the history of each particular project involves many contingencies-of the society's history, of previous rounds of infrastructure and of capital availability. {F}ourth: have there been changes in the scale at which water is managed within countries? {I}n general, it seems there has been an increase in the scale of projects, generally involving a shift in power away from regional and up to multi-regional agencies of governance, such as the central state. {S}ometimes these shifts in scale and power have no effect on the salience of local voices-because in the past they were never heard or generally suppressed anyway. {S}ometimes the shifts in power and scale have been accompanied by increasing suppression of local voices of opposition. {I}n one case-{S}outh {A}frica-the change in scale has seen a stand-off between representatives of new voices and the infrastructure-focussed engineering elite.},
  keywords = {{H}ydraulic mission ; infrastructure ; water demand management ; governance ; hydro-politics scale ; {MONDE}},
  booktitle = {},
  journal = {{W}ater {A}lternatives},
  volume = {10},
  numero = {2},
  pages = {195--207},
  ISSN = {1965-0175},
  year = {2017},
  URL = {https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010070208},
}