July 16, 2019 Journal article Open Access

Castro, Jose Esteban; Katko, Tapio S.; Pietilä, Pekka E.; Vihanta, Joni; Juuti, Petri S.; Rajala, Riikka P.; Orta, Melisa; Portapila, Margarita; Muñoz, Alberto; Pérez, Iván; Deon, Joaquín Ulises

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{
  "publisher": "Zenodo", 
  "DOI": "10.5281/zenodo.7501802", 
  "language": "eng", 
  "title": "Challenges and opportunities facing water-service cooperatives: cases from Argentina and Finland (in English and Spanish)", 
  "issued": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2019, 
        7, 
        16
      ]
    ]
  }, 
  "abstract": "<p>his issue corresponds to Vol. 5, No 4, of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network Working Papers (http://waterlat.org/publications/working-papers-series/)</p>\n\n<p>This issue is part of the activities of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network&rsquo;s Thematic&nbsp;Area 3 (TA3), the Urban Water Cycle and Essential Public Services (http://waterlat.&nbsp;org/thematic-areas/ta3/). TA3 brings together academics, students, professionals&nbsp;working in the public sector, workers&rsquo; unions, practitioners from Non-Governmental&nbsp;Organizations, activists and members of civil society groups, and representatives of&nbsp;communities and users of public services, among others. The remit of this TA is broad,&nbsp;as the name suggests, but it has a strong focus on the political ecology of urban water,&nbsp;with emphasis on the politics of essential water services. Key issues &nbsp;addressed within&nbsp;this framework have been the neoliberalization of water services, social struggles&nbsp;against privatization and mercantilization of these services, the politics of public policy&nbsp;and management in the sector, water inequality and injustice in urban areas, and the&nbsp;contradictions and conflicts surrounding the status of water and water services as&nbsp;a public good, as a common good, as a commodity, as a citizenship right, and more&nbsp;recently, as a human right.&nbsp;The publication is a product of a long-term collaboration with the Capacity&nbsp;Development of Water and Environmental Services (CADWES) Research Group, which&nbsp;holds the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Water Services at Tampere University of&nbsp;Technology (TUT) in Finland under the coordination of the issue&rsquo;s co-editor, Prof. Tapio&nbsp;S. Katko. The idea of developing a series of publications on the history and relevance of&nbsp;water-service cooperatives around the world has been an important component of our&nbsp;common research plans and initiatives, and we decided to start with this issue on the&nbsp;challenges and opportunities facing cooperatives in the current context. Consistently&nbsp;with our Network&rsquo;s inter- and transdisciplinary approach, the authors include academics&nbsp;and post-graduate students from the social sciences, history, and engineering, as well&nbsp;as professionals and leaders of civil society organizations working in areas relevant to&nbsp;the topics addressed in the publication.</p>\n\n<p>The issue features four articles, two of them addressing the situation of waterservice&nbsp;cooperatives in Finland, and the other two focused on experiences from&nbsp;Argentina. Article 1 is authored by Pekka E. Pietil&auml; from CADWES-TUT and Joni Vihanta,&nbsp;who is the Managing Director of Kannus Water Cooperative in Kannus Municipality,&nbsp;Finland and simultaneously a PhD student doing research on water cooperatives at&nbsp;TUT. The paper presents a synthetic overview of the situation of water cooperatives in&nbsp;Finland, including an analysis of the challenges and opportunities they face in a context&nbsp;of rising consumer expectations and stricter service standards. Article 2 by Petri S. Juuti&nbsp;and Riikka P. Rajala, also from TUT, complements the first paper by focusing attention&nbsp;on the case of the first water cooperative created in Finland, Pispala Water Cooperative,&nbsp;which was founded in 1907 near the city of Tampere in the south of the country.&nbsp;Both articles highlight the fact that in the late Nineteenth Century, before becoming&nbsp;independent from Russia in 1917, Finland decided that essential water and sanitation&nbsp;services should be delivered by municipal public bodies or cooperatives run by users&nbsp;and community organizations, rather than by profit-making private companies, which&nbsp;remains a significant principle for the organization of these services in the country until&nbsp;today.&nbsp;Article 3 is led by Melisa Orta, a PhD student in Politics at the National University of&nbsp;Rosario (UNR) on a studentship from the National Scientific and Technical Research&nbsp;Council (CONICET), Argentina, and was co-authored with Margarita Portapila, from&nbsp;the International French-Argentinean Centre of Information Sciences and Systems&nbsp;(CIFASIS), CONICET and UNR, Alberto Mu&ntilde;oz, from Argentina&rsquo;s Union of Users and&nbsp;Consumers, and Iv&aacute;n P&eacute;rez, from the country&rsquo;s Cooperative Funds Managing Institute&nbsp;(IMFC). The article discusses in some detail the history of the cooperative movement&nbsp;in Argentina since the late Nineteenth Century, and the development of water-service&nbsp;cooperatives in the country. It focuses on the case of water-service cooperatives in the&nbsp;Province of Santa Fe and highlights the significance of cooperatives in the provision of&nbsp;services in small and medium cities and rural areas. The authors also address the wide&nbsp;range of obstacles and threats facing water cooperatives, from the lack of safe water&nbsp;sources and adequate financial and technical resources to the systematic antagonism&nbsp;showed since the 1980s by neoliberal governments that seek to erode and eventually&nbsp;dismantle the cooperative movement, which they see as an obstacle to their plans to fully&nbsp;privatize essential services and other important areas. Finally, Article 4 was authored by&nbsp;Joaqu&iacute;n Ulises Deon, a PhD student in Social Agrarian Studies at the National University&nbsp;of Cordoba (UNC) on a studentship from CONICET, Argentina, also working on a joint&nbsp;PhD on Urban-Regional Studies between the Bauhaus Universit&auml;t Weimar, Germany,&nbsp;and UNC, Argentina. The article partly complements the previous one by addressing&nbsp;important aspects of the history of the cooperative movement in Argentina, highlighting&nbsp;the fact that not all cooperatives adhere to cooperative principles, and many are in fact&nbsp;private enterprises in disguise. The paper addresses the development of cooperatives,&nbsp;and particularly water-service cooperatives, in the arid Province of Cordoba, Argentina,&nbsp;and focuses in more depth on four cases that the author considers are examples of&nbsp;genuine cooperative experiences. The article presents a very critical assessment of&nbsp;government policies against water-service cooperatives at the national, provincial&nbsp;and local levels, and shows evidence of the multiple pressures facing the cooperative&nbsp;movement in the province. Cooperatives have developed successful strategies to cope&nbsp;with these pressures, by establishing alliances with social movements and civil society&nbsp;organizations, exercising legitimate leadership in local and regional struggles to defend&nbsp;their water sources from the aggressive expansion of extractivist activities, including&nbsp;mining, agribusinesses, and private urbanizations.</p>", 
  "author": [
    {
      "family": "Castro, Jose Esteban"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Katko, Tapio S."
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Pietil\u00e4, Pekka E."
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Vihanta, Joni"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Juuti, Petri S."
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Rajala, Riikka P."
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Orta, Melisa"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Portapila, Margarita"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Mu\u00f1oz, Alberto"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "P\u00e9rez, Iv\u00e1n"
    }, 
    {
      "family": "Deon, Joaqu\u00edn Ulises"
    }
  ], 
  "type": "article-journal", 
  "id": "7501802"
}