Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the issue of water and neoliberal policies. Specifically it addresses the conflict between communities and the privatization of communal property in rural areas of the Western Balkans. The ethnographic material focuses on Albania .

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on the issue of water and neoliberal policies. Specifically it addresses the conflict between communities and the privatization of communal property in rural areas of the Western Balkans. The ethnographic material focuses on Albania that leads the list of Balkan States with the privatization of more than 713 rivers and streams in order to built dams and hydropowers under the label of an environmentally friendly renewable energy. Progress, development, modernization and European integration are often used as keywords by state bureaucrats and politicians to describe and eventually legitimatize the privatization of water flow. Hydro powered energy production is sold to the public by the government as eco-friendly carbon-free energy production. However, most of these projects have faced community-based resistance. Dams are changing not only the natural landscape of the rural areas but also people's lives as long as access to water is reduced dramatically. Communities are often supported by environmental activists. It is in the intention of this presentation to explore the dynamicity of the conflict between communities, government policies and private firms over water rights in the implementation process of two hydropower projects in contemporary Albania. Among others, our discussion will draw the audience's attention to the ways how the materialization of neoliberal policies on the environment specifically and on the common good in more broader terms are quickly eroding the very foundations of the democratic order.

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