Feminisms flow through the struggle for safe drinking water in Uruguay

A woman holds a sign reading “Water is a right, not a business” at a protest in Montevideo in May, 2023. Photo: @Monic_so.

Opinion • Victoria Furtado • July 13, 2023 • Leer en castellano

Montevideo and its metropolitan area have been without drinking water for two months now. The crisis, caused by the systematic overuse of the country’s water according to extractivist logics, has been aggravated by the drought affecting the Santa Lucía river, which supplies fresh water to the city.

Government action to address this situation have been limited to measures for reserving and treating drinking water, resulting in a significant decrease in quality. What comes out of the taps in Montevideo is salty water which is not suitable for drinking, but which can be drunk (que el agua no es potable, pero si es bebible) according to the Ministry of Public Health. Tapwater is not recommended for consumption by various sectors of the population (people with high blood pressure, the elderly, or pregnant people).

The water reservoir serving Montevideo could be completely depleted over the coming days, making the possibility of losing access to even low quality water a reality. A water emergency was declared on June 19. Coming well after the crisis took hold, this decree granted tax exemption for bottled water. In addition, it promises infrastructure construction without giving a timeline. This could potentially mitigate the supply problem, but won’t improve the quality of the water that reaches households.

In this context, struggles for water were reactivated in Montevideo and other parts of Uruguay. Daily mobilizations encompass a wide range of actions and activities, carried out both by groups autonomously convened since the first days of May and by collectives that have been organizing in defense of water and life over a much longer period.

Several genealogies of struggle converge in the plurality of ongoing mobilizations. One that stands out is the participation of young women, who bring with them experiences from feminism over the years, a time of rebellion in which care and the reproduction of life was at the center. Feminisms resonate today in their reading of the struggle for water as part of the conflict between life and capital. They’re also interwoven in the political practices and forms of organizing and being in the streets in the struggle for water today.

“We’re all pibas”

Florencia Anzalone is a feminist activist who has actively participated in the mobilizations for water since they started two months ago. She sees shared concerns and perspectives across both experiences of struggle: the focus on care work and life, and a critical analysis of which lives matter, how we relate to each other and to the earth, water and other species. “Both of these struggles have a lot to say in thinking about how patriarchal extractivist capitalism operates on land and on bodies,” said Anzalone.

For Dava Pérez, who is also a feminist, the fight for water has reactivated the memory of a previous struggle: that of the Popular Assembly for Water in Mendoza (Argentina), her hometown, which began when the first mining operation in the mountains was announced. It was her first experience with activism.

Women of all ages are participating in and leading the struggle for safe drinking water in Montevideo. Photo: @Monic_so.

“I can’t believe that the water coming out of the tap is salty and that it’s because of the same process of extraction and the exploitation of land and nature for dehumanized profit,” said Pérez. “I’m again on the path that tells us water is non-negotiable, that water needs to be cared for, and that life needs to be at the center of everything.”

Anzalone and Pérez say the same compañeras from the feminist movement are in the streets in defense of water in Montevideo. They’re the ones who have long centered the need to care for life. "I realized that we were all pibas (young women)", said Pérez. When she started to become involved in feminism, she says, she met women who care for the rivers, for the land, for their children and for themselves.

In Latin America, caring for territory, nature, rivers, peoples and the sustenance of life in general has contributed a lot to feminism, and vice versa. Uruguay is no exception.

Struggle as a space for care

The last weeks of mobilizations have combined rallies, marches, neighborhood assemblies, blockades at the entrances to the UPM sawmill, artistic interventions, and many other actions. They're convened by various collectives that converge in the streets, while also organizing autonomously. 

Anzalone suggests understanding this varied approach to demonstrations and organized political practice as a key point of contact with feminisms, which in recent years have transformed political practice and ways of being in the streets and protesting. "There are many different actions and the sense of an ecosystem or constellation of actions, which move in different ways and intensities within a common struggle," she said in an interview with Ojalá.

A woman stands up to a cop during a march for water in Montevideo in May. Her sign reads “For water and for life.” Photo: @Monic_so.

This way of doing politics goes hand in hand with critiques of other, more traditional forms of politics and with the horizontal approach to organization contemporary feminisms share. Anzalone says this isn’t the only lesson learned. "It's also the way in which we share life in the moment we're organizing," she said. "We're striving to take care of the bodies in struggle, we're asking how we can build a struggle in which we care for ourselves and for the experiences of other people."

Pérez highlights the importance of meeting women who have been involved in the feminist movement for the past eight or nine years on the streets mobilizing for water. "It's really cool to run into each other, to meet, to recognize each other, to feel like we’re all compañeras, and to feel safe together," Perez said.

There have been more tense moments, like when police show up to intimidate protesters. "That kind of thing scares me so much, but I always turn to a compañera, and when we look at each other we know that we're in it together," Pérez told Ojalá. "That gives me a lot of strength and it's something we created ourselves in the street as feminists."

Fighting for life together and in the street

Resonances between actions for water and the political practices of feminisms in Uruguay also appear in the creativity and willingness to participate actively, as well as an awareness of the role of bodies and affections in streets.

Anzalone emphasizes that in the fight for safe drinking water, everyone participates in some capacity because they know they have something to contribute. "This is linked to feminist forms of mobilization, which don't delegate to others but rather sustain the idea that everyone can actively participate."

Young women participate in an autonomous march for water in Montevideo in May. Photo by @Monic_so.

In both struggles, this empowerment gives rise to great creativity when it comes to being out in the street with artistic interventions, songs, actions and rallies. "We're not following a recipe that tells us what to do," said Anzalone.

Pérez is a dancer, and together with other colleagues involved in the arts cofounded an artivist group to reflect on ways of embodying the struggle within local assemblies for water.

"My way of being in the street is through dance and song," she says. For Pérez, this represents a clear interface with feminist struggles. "Any compañera who has been to a protest march on March 8th can see we are doing something very creative there as well: singing, dancing, performing, playing an instrument, and in doing so, creating so much joy."

In addition to creativity, the two activists emphasize the involvement of the body. "In neither of these two struggles are the marches about just going to chat and drink mate," says Anzalone. "Although at times we do that too, there's a lot of activity and intensity in how we take the streets."