On October 18, 2023, Mariana Valderrama Leongómez presented at the UAB the doctoral thesis “The load of water: How women negotiate water scarcity in the Fúquene river basin, Cundinamarca, Colombia”. Interuniversity programme in Gender Studies: Cultures, Societies and Policies, Interuniversity Gender Institute. Thesis directed by Mireia Baylina (UAB) and Isabel Salamaña (UdG).
The thesis examines the relationship between water scarcity and the implications in the daily life of women in the Fúquene River Basin. The dominant notions about what a woman is, about her “jobs” and behaviors, framed in the particular configuration of households operating as “each house is a government”, translate into water scarcity becoming a burden for them, pointing to experiences of physical and symbolic violence. The thesis shows, however, that not all women living in the Fúquene river basin face this burden in the same way. Those who live in the upper part, in the vicinity of the moorland, have not only access to water, but also better quality. Due to the policies of what Mariana Valderrama calls the invisible state, women in the urban area, as well as those who have their rest homes in Fúquene, also have a water supply derived from the municipal aqueduct. On the contrary, women in the lagoon area are the ones who face the greatest burden due to the scarcity of water in order to carry out their domestic tasks. The thesis shows how this inequality is so profound that even livestock and crops, or the tourism policies of the lagoon, have priority in this political economy of water, above the people who live in the lagoon area and a certain part of the urban periphery of the municipality. In theoretical terms, the analysis is based on conceptual inputs derived from studies of development, political ecology and feminist critical geography. In relation to the methodology, the thesis is presented from ethnography and counter-cartography.