Recommoning water: Crossing thresholds under citizen-driven remunicipalisation

Abstract

Since 2008, the call to ‘remunicipalise’ water resources has become a key strategy for water movements across Europe. Remunicipalisation aimed at opposing the new wave of privatisation programmes and water commodification incentivised under austerity frameworks. However, the water movements’ lack of direct engagement with questions of re/commoning resulted in under-explored links, in practitioner and scholarly arenas, between demands for water remunicipalisation and practices of commoning. This article brings into dialogue the bodies of literature on commoning and remunicipalisation. It examines the conditions which enable crossing the paradigm threshold from municipal governance, towards more collective and situated models of water governance rooted in practices of commoning. The article operationalises the concept of recommoning water to capture this process, and proposes an analytical definition grounded in a case study of water remunicipalisation in Terrassa, Spain. In 2019, Terrassa achieved remunicipalisation to create a citizen water observatory. The empirical findings demonstrate that water activists in Terassa’s Observatory are reclaiming and reproducing the commons on a daily basis through a process of experimentation with institutional bricolage and (re)negotiation of power and autonomy. This citizen-led observatory is ensuring that resources are shared in common, are used for the common good and are reproducing the commons. The study concludes that water remunicipalisation can act as an important step for enabling processes of recommoning. Nevertheless, the institutionalisation of recommoning water under a public management regime is confronted with multifaceted tensions that merit attention from both activists and policymakers.