Hydraulic heroes: the ironies of utopian hydraulism and its politics of autonomy in the Guadalhorce Valley, Spain Rutgerd Boelens a, b, * and Nynke C. Post Uiterweer a a Dept. Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AAWageningen, The Netherlands b Dept. Social Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Avenida Universitaria 1801, Lima, Peru Abstract This paper focuses on the Guadalhorce Valley, Málaga Province, Spain, where a rich farmer-managed irrigation tradition has flourished since Arab times. Local communities diverted water from the river, managing numerous small-scale systems. These systems have now been destroyed. We trace the causes back to the profound impact that early twentieth century discourse about water control had on Spain’s socio-natural landscape: an impact that extended far beyond water management. The idealistic Política Hidráulica discourse, linked with ‘regenerationism’, glorified small-farmer irrigation and promoted hydraulic works and the expansion of irrigation as a socio-economic and cultural-political solution for Spain’s bankrupt and ‘degenerated’ condition in the mid-19th Century. We follow the thinking and accomplishments of Rafael Benjumea, Count of Guadalhorce, Minister of Public Works and devoted follower of regenerationist leader Joaquin Costa. Benjumea was founding father of the widely acclaimed River Basin Confederations and one of Spain’s chief ‘hydraulic heroes’. We analyse the irony of the water policy discourse, the political paradoxes and conceptual contradictions of hydraulic utopianism. This political- ideological current aspired to install decentralized watershed management and defend local collectives’ autonomy. Yet the policies, institutions and hydraulic works it established destroyed much of the local autonomy that did exist. The pursuit of the utopian project involved an iron-fisted, surgical policy of expertocracy, designed to restore ‘natural order’, which entailed overturning existing local water users’ institutions, rights frameworks and knowledge systems. Analysing historical material and empirical data gathered during long-term field research on the Guadalhorce, we examine four bitter ironies of ‘utopian hydraulism’. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Hydraulic policy; Regenerationism; Irrigation; Self-governance; Utopia; Spain; Hydraulism If you wish to leave traces of your passage through power, irrigate fields; the Arabs passed through Spain: their race, their religion, their codes, their temples, their tombs have all vanished, but their memory remains alive, because their irrigation has persisted. 1 Like other regions of Spain, Guadalhorce Valley’s rich history has been profoundly modified by its diverse water management systems. During Arab times there was a boom in irrigation construction and management that generated new hydraulic technologies, expanded the productivity of agricultural systems within this semi-arid zone, and led to the establishment of a variety of normative and institutional frameworks to manage water autonomously. For centuries after the Moors were expelled from Spain, local communities continued tapping into this economic and cultural legacy. This paper examines how fundamental changes in the discourse about water governance in Spain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries deeply influenced practices surrounding irrigation and water control, which in turn affected the entire social and natural landscape. The discourse exalted traditional small- farmer led irrigation and promoted the expansion of large-scale irrigation and water works as a solution for the nation’s overall ‘degeneration’. The quotation that opens this section is from Hydraulic Policy. The social mission of irrigation in Spain by Joaquín Costa, who led the political-intellectual current of ‘regeneration- ism’ and exemplifies those feelings. At a time when the country had lost its empire and influence and was in profound socio-economic * Corresponding author. Dept. Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AAWageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail addresses: rutgerd.boelens@wur.nl, nynke.postuiterweer@wur.nl. 1 J. Costa, Política Hidráulica. Misión social de los riegos en España, Madrid, 1911, 1. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Historical Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg 0305-7488/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2012.12.005 Journal of Historical Geography 41 (2013) 44e58