Community Water Management from the Participation of Peasant Women, in the Municipality of Timbío-Cauca, Colombia

Abstract

Community Water Management in Rural Areas has been strengthened through the recognition and the spaces that rural women are gaining. These women have waged struggles in their territories for water for their communities. Through activities inherent to rural life and intercultural exchange, they have secured spaces for political, economic, social, and environmental participation, making their voices visible through positions, arguments, actions, and discourses that bring to light the real needs of their territories, within processes of resistance rooted in their own actions. The qualitative approach methodology analyzed realities within their contexts, interpreting the meanings and roles each woman plays in water management processes, their perspectives on social, cultural, and political issues, and their standpoints for both mitigating and raising their voices in the face of this reality.

Information was collected through visits during different stages of the process, gatherings were held, and stories and lived experiences were gathered from the diversity of their roles. The findings reveal the situation of rural women in their contexts, the challenges they face daily, the stereotypes with which they have been labeled, their resistance and leadership in decision-making, and the ways they define, from their own thinking, categories that identify them. The conclusions highlight and acknowledge situations such as the absence of the State in the management of rural aqueducts, the different systems of oppression, discrimination, and types of violence that seek to overshadow the role they play in their communities and in society.