Presentation short abstract

The paper proposes the concept of hydrosocial nationhood to illuminate the emerging hydraulic imagination of the contemporary far-right, with a focus on water conflicts in Spain.

Presentation long abstract

In November 2024, as deadly floods swept through Valencian towns, VOX blamed not the climate or infrastructural decay but 'ideological mismanagement' by Madrid and Brussels environmental agendas. In drought-stricken Andalusia, they pointed to the same environmental 'elites' for 'abandoning' the construction of dams in the name of ecological restoration. Indeed, in the past few years, water has become an key political battleground for the far-right in Spain. This paper looks at how these parties use conflicts around water to manifest their co-extensive imaginaries of nationhood and ecological order. Building on the hydrosocial cycle literature (Swyngedouw 2004; Boelens et al. 2016) and more recent work on the ideological use of nature under authoritarian discourses (Gorostiza and Del Arco 2022), the paper aims to draw out the emerging hydraulic imagination of the contemporary far-right. The paper focuses on VOX and relies on the analysis of press, party materials, parliamentary debates, and social media. We ask: How do far-right actors produce knowledge and narratives about water systems? What kinds of infrastructures and governance arrangements do they advocate for in the midst of water conflicts? What are the (potential) ecological and democratic consequences of these imaginaries? While past political ecologies have shown how water infrastructures reflect and reproduce power relations, this paper contributes a novel angle by focusing on how the far right discursively reclaims hydraulic modernity and territorial sovereignty as part of an anti-ecologist, populist agenda