Water infrastructures in the U.S./Mexico borderlands

This article discusses the infrastructures involved in the management and use of water in the borderlands of Mexico and the United States. I maintain that both the physical works and the institutions of water management should be understood as infrastructures, and locate infrastructures within larger political and economic processes. Archaeological, historical and ethnographic literature on irrigation in the borderlands provides data about the evolution and functioning of small‐ and large‐scale infrastructures. Since European contact, water infrastructures have enabled different regimes of accumulation to grow, overlap and decline: mining; ranching; agriculture; urbanization and industry; and the service economy. This process continues into the twenty first century, and changes to infrastructures that respond to current issues of scarcity and conflict must be understood in relation to this material history. I argue that in the present conjuncture new infrastructures must be developed to confront unsustainability, and the management and knowledge of these must be decentralized, democratic, and collective.