Water and Socio-Environmental Crisis in Guatemala City’s Metropolitan Area

• Author: Patrick Illmer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221120014
• Published date: 01 November 2022
• Date: 01 November 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221120014

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 247, Vol. 49 No. 6, November 2022, 55–70

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221120014

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

55

Water and Socio-Environmental Crisis in Guatemala City’s

Metropolitan Area

by

Patrick Illmer

Translated by

Margot Olavarria

The water crisis in Guatemala City’s metropolitan area reflects the interaction of two

dimensions of the deployment of power in low-income neighborhoods—the direct exercise

of power over actors and spaces by elites or political centers and micropolitical operations.

This interaction produces patterns of behavior that deepen socio-spatial segregation, social

fragmentation, and the delimitation of horizons of political possibility among broad sec-

tors of the urban population.

La crisis del agua en el área metropolitana de la Ciudad de Guatemala refleja la interac-

ción de dos dimensiones a partir del despliegue del poder en barrios de bajos ingresos—esto

es, el ejercicio directo del poder sobre actores y espacios por parte de élites o centros políti-

cos y operaciones micropolíticas. Esta interacción produce patrones de comportamiento

que profundizan la desegregación socio-espacial, la fragmentación social y la delimitación

de horizontes de posibilidad política entre amplios sectores de la población urbana.

Keywords: Hydropolitics, Guatemala City, Socio-environmental crisis, Power, Social

fragmentation

This article takes the issue of water as a starting point to explore the deploy-

ment of different dimensions of power and their impact on the possibilities for

collective action in marginal areas of Guatemala City’s metropolitan area. The

research conceives of urban space as the product of metabolic processes

(Heynen, Kaїka, and Swyngedouw, 2002; Swyngedouw, 1996)—the interweav-

ing of socio-environmental processes that end up reinforcing dynamics of mar-

ginalization and spatial segregation. The field of urban geography has made

important contributions to explaining the patterns of exclusion unfolding

under the idea of “unequal geographic development” outlined by Smith (1984)

and reviewed by Harvey (1985; 2014) and Brenner (2009). At the same time,

political ecology has paid attention to the issue of public services—among

them the distribution of water—to examine how urban transformations involve

marginalization and restriction of access to these services (Bakker, 2010; Sultana

and Loftus, 2013; Swyngedouw, 1996; 2004). Both branches of this literature

highlight the “polymorphous” (Lefebre, 1991) character of urban spaces, the

Patrick Illmer is a lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Studies of the Universidad

Autónoma Nacional de México. This manuscript was funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from

DGAPA-UNAM. Margot Olavarria is a translator living in New York City.

1120014LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221120014Latin American PerspectivesIllmer/WATER AND CRISIS IN GUATEMALA CITY

research-article2022

56 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

configuration of which is a response to multiple interrelated values and pat-

terns. Thus, a consensus on the influence of political structures on marginaliza-

tion and the restriction of water distribution dominates these debates.

In the same vein, the crisis around water in Guatemala City’s metropolitan

area is related to the exercise of concentrated political power by economic

elites. The prolonged political administration of the Unionist Party, managed

by the Arzú1 family, symbolizes the confluence of neoliberal logic with the

oligarchic attributes of traditional economic elites that prioritize the defense

and expansion of their privileges. The result has been the prioritization of the

private over the public that is inscribed in the performance of public institu-

tions and services such as the provision of drinking water. Beyond document-

ing this crisis, I propose to tackle an additional analytical concern. Despite the

restriction of access to water and deficient service in the provision of drinking

water, there is an apparent absence of processes for articulating grievances

and instigating collective action. This scenario contrasts with a narrative that

stresses current urban settings as fertile areas for the emergence of collective

action (Harvey, 2012; Soja, 2010) and for resistance movements against the

privatization of water or the limitations of public space (Fernandes, 2017;

Olivera, 2004; Zibechi, 2011). The organizational inertia in the metropolitan

area also contrasts with the local foci of defense of territory and natural

resources that have characterized the community fabric in rural Guatemala

over the past two decades (Illmer, 2018a). These conflicting accounts raise

questions about how to explain the tendencies toward isolation and fragmen-

tation that are so prevalent. Drawing on a theoretical differentiation between

dominant power or “power over” (Holloway, 2005; Lukes, 1974; Swyngedouw,

2004) and micropolitical power (Foucault, 1988), this article tracks the effects

of the above-mentioned forms of public administration and suggests that the

complex interaction of these two dimensions of power encourages dynamics

such as political clientelism, individualizing patterns of economic subsump-

tion, and reproduction of violent interactions, all factors that limit the possi-

bilities for collective reaction to crises among residents of marginal

neighborhoods.

I do not intend to deny the individual and collective agency of neighbors.

Having lived in the metropolitan area for several years, I was able to observe

residents’ micropolitical resilience and capacity to organize their daily survival.

In fact, my research developed from visiting four neighborhoods in the subur-

ban area2 with activists from organizations such as Urban Platform and the

Urban Coordination of Community Organizations. However, the visits to and

conversations in the neighborhoods also allowed me to gather concerns about

the difficulty of steering sustained collective processes to confront patterns that

threaten to deepen marginalization and abandonment.

After introducing my metabolic conceptualization of urban spaces and the

differentiation of dimensions of power, I start by reviewing the genesis of the

city and its marginal areas and describing the administration and distribution

of water in the metropolitan area. I go on to discuss the specific factors that

promote disarticulation of the social interactions of these areas, starting with

the various dynamics unleashed by elites’ exercise of power in line with a neo-

liberal political rationality.