Управление на водния сектор и екологична справедливост: съпротива или оцеляване на кв. "Надежда" в Сливен
Water Sector Management and Environmental Justice: Resistance or Survival in the Nadezhda District of Sliven

Author(s): Rositsa Kratunkovа
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Social Sciences, Economy, Business Economy / Management, Micro-Economics, Energy and Environmental Studies, Sociology, Economic policy, Environmental and Energy policy, Developing nations, Social differentiation, Rural and urban sociology, Political Ecology, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: segregation; Roma; water; water supply; racialization; neoliberalism
Summary/Abstract: Since 1989, Bulgaria has been undergoing rapid economic restructuring, affecting urban governance and the equitable distribution of resources. In Sliven, the mass closure of factories and the layoff of Roma workers accelerated the processes of spatial segregation and ghettoization, thus creating racialized poverty. The water sector also suffers from chronic underinvestment, which often leads to water supply interruptions in the city. The Roma from the Nadezhda district are considered guilty of the accumulated economic losses of the Sliven Water and Sewerage Company by the institutions, which become scapegoats for the structural problems. At the same time the interests of the business trump the needs of the population for drinking water. As a result, the water supply in the district is interrupted every night. This situation raises questions about how the marginalized urban population can resist and demand access to basic rights such as the right to water. In addition to the tactics of the locals, the report also draws attention to the other, institutional side – what oppressive practices the authorities use. The theoretical framework of infrapolitics, conceived by James Scott, situates the low-intensity actions and gestures of subordinate groups in the context of collective political action and helps to illustrate how Roma in Nadezhda act politically. This is considered against the backdrop of how water governance reconfigures social relations and governance structures, using the prism of the hydrosocial cycle of water.

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