Water infrastructures and local power in peripheral urbanisation: New insights from urban political ecology in São Paulo

This paper explores how access to water in peripheral urban settlements is shaped by micro-scale power relations, material infrastructures, and collective organisation. Engaging with debates on infrastructure and peripheral urbanisation in the Global South, the paper conceptualises access to water infrastructures through the lens of Access Theory. The study examines two recent land occupations in São Paulo, Brazil, which differ significantly in their organisational structures. The comparison reveals that seemingly similar contexts of peripheral urbanisation generate profoundly divergent hydrosocial metabolisms through residents’ differentiated approaches to self-built infrastructure development. It contributes to situated Urban Political Ecology debates by demonstrating how peripheral urbanisation produces heterogeneous socionatural configurations rather than uniform patterns of exclusion. This points to the need for nuanced approaches to 'informal settlements' and highlights residents as active producers of urban infrastructure and distinct territorial subjectivities.