The social construction of scarcity.: The case of water in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

Water has traditionally been considered a physically scarce resource in the Canary Islands. Paradoxically, one of the reasons behind the conquest of the Islands in the 15th century was the existence of abundant water which allowed sugar to be grown in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. This article aims to show that the water scarcity in Tenerife is not physical or natural, but rather a socially constructed one, stemming from a set of social processes that reflect the conflicts concerning the desirable kind of society and social order. These processes also consolidate the notion of aquifer and water as a capital asset and commodity, as opposed to the notion of water as an ecosocial asset or common property. The change in mentality with respect to water momentarily led to abundance, with availability multiplying tenfold in less than a century and, at the same time, to the social construction of scarcity, given that the groundwater aquifer was overexploited rapidly because successive changes in the institutional framework were impeded which might have regulated water extraction. The overriding concern was to maintain private ownership of water, even if this entailed eventual exhaustion. We study water shortage as the result of the articulation between the natural system (aquifer) and the social system. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.