Presentation short abstract

We assess seawater desalination as an adaptation strategy in Chile, using gendered understandings of domestic water supply and security. We argue that desalination is a maladaptation strategy, part of long-standing neoliberal water policies that don´t protect vulnerable groups.

Presentation long abstract

Within wider concerns on water security under climate change, drinking water supply is particularly challenging, as non-compliance with strict quality norms and service requirements can have direct impacts on public health and wellbeing. Desalination is one of the prominent solutions for resolving water scarcity and Chile’s main adaptation strategy in water-stressed regions, especially in urban hubs along the coast of the Atacama Desert. Here, we merge insights from literature on climate change maladaptation, gendered and feminist understandings of domestic water supply and security, and critical social research on desalination, to create a framework that permits a gendered and intersectional evaluation of desalination through the concept of maladaptation. We use this, in turn, to assess desalination in Chile not as an isolated adaptation strategy with negative or neutral impacts, but as an essential part of the long-standing Chilean neoliberal water policies that are based on market-based solutions, capital-intensive mega infrastructure, and that produce or maintain water insecurity for women and other vulnerable groups. To support our argument, we analyse how domestic water insecurity is constructed in the daily lives of urban Chilean women who drink desalinated water. Results are based on extensive household surveys, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and literature review, and permit the understanding of desalination as maladaptation in 3 manners: 1) it does not guarantee water security, 2) it displaces conflict geographically, temporally, and socially, and 3) it contributes to climate change, the same problem it adapts societies to.