The author scrutinizes the claim of policy-makers and experts that legal recognition of local water rights would reduce water conflict and increase water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. She analyzes two distinct 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' formalization policies in Peru and Bolivia - neoliberal the former, indigenist-socialist the latter. The policies have intended and unintended consequences and impact on marginalized peasants and the complex inter-legal systems for providing water security on the ground. This study seeks to debunk the official myth of the need to create state-centric, top-down legal security in complex, pluralistic water realities. The engagement between formal and alternative 'water securities' and controversial notions of 'rightness' is interwoven and contested; a complex setting is unveiled that forbids one-size-fits-all solutions. Peru's and Bolivia's case studies demonstrate how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, in practice actually reinforce exclusion of the marginalized. Water rights formalization is certainly no panacea.

Foreword: Divergent Water Securities and the Politics of Formalization; Rutgerd Boelens

1. Water Security, Formalization and Water Justice
2. Property Rights in Water Resources Management
3. Legal Pluralism and the Political Ecology of Water
4. Water Security and Equity for Peasant and Indigenous Communities in the Peruvian Highlands
5. The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Peru
6. The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Yanque, Colca Valley, Peru
7. Water Security and Equity for Peasant and Indigenous Communities in the Bolivian Highlands
8. The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Bolivia
9. The Formal Recognition of Local Water Rights in Cochimita, Tiraque Valley, Bolivia
10. Conclusion – the Politics of Water Rights Formalization and the Missing Ingredient of Water Security

The author scrutinizes the claim that legal recognition of local water rights would reduce water conflict and increase water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. Peru's and Bolivia's case studies demonstrate how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, actually reinforce exclusion of the marginalized.