Conflicts over land and water in Híjar, Spain

This research paper tells the story of a long-standing conflict between a group of Spanish farmers and irrigators of the village of Híjar and the Direction of the Government of Aragón (DGA). By tracing the arrival of a renewable energy irrigation technology (HyPump) in the village, this study exposes the social, political and economic dynamics behind this event, and its relation with the broader processes of ‘agricultural development’ taking place in Híjar. The origin of the confrontation goes back to the DGA’s decision to constrain a procedure of land consolidation, allegedly free by law, to an irrigation modernization project, which would have had to be partly assumed by the Irrigation Community of Híjar. The introduction of the HyPump in the village represents a local attempt to oppose this imposition. Informed by an agrarian political economy perspective, this study examines the ways in which local political actions encounter institutional structures of power and authority. Overall, it reveals that the local drivers for mobilization, as well as the underlying processes behind the introduction of the irrigation technology, are deeply related to the problem of the land.