Grounded perspectives on water infrastructures and drought imaginaries in the semi-arid Northeast of Brazil

This paper discusses how water infrastructure became central to drought management in the state of Ceará in Brazil’s Northeast region, and how this status has been maintained over the decades. It emphasizes the importance of social imaginaries and institutional arrangements in defining water ontologies and developing subjectivities that play in the moralization of water use and rights in crisis contexts. Our empirically grounded, interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how the co-evolution of infrastructure and institutional arrangements contributes to maintaining the infrastructure’s centrality in drought management, primarily to increase water availability. Consequently, despite the establishment of participatory bodies and an alternative approach to managing droughts in rural communities, large-scale water infrastructure remains a key pillar in preparing for future droughts. While these infrastructures provide the state with some ’control capacities’ over the water resources, they also have considerable uncontrolled and intertwined hydro-social effects. We argue that further interdisciplinary research is required to understand the complex role of infrastructures and imaginaries in water management.