Historical Political Ecology of Water: Access to Municipal Drinking Water in Colonial Lima, Peru (1578–1700)

Abstract

Historical political ecology provides a powerful framework for understanding nature–society relations in the past. This approach is applied to municipal drinking water governance in early colonial Lima, Peru, with a focus on how power dynamics influenced sociospatial patterns of water access and control. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century archival sources are analyzed for material aspects of Lima's drinking water pipeline network and for the management strategies employed by the municipal government. Access to water is demonstrated to have shaped, reinforced, and reflected colonial social divisions and to have been linked to the spatial development of the city, including urban–rural relations.