Reconfiguración hidroterritorial del municipio de Fómeque a partir del proyecto Chingaza: desterritorialización, despojo y gestión comunitaria del agua. Región de Bogotá-Colombia

Abstract

The general objective of this work was to analyze the hydro-territorial reconfiguration of Fómeque municipality resulting from the implementation of the Chingaza Project, a system that since the 1970s has supplied approximately 70% of the water consumed by Bogotá, examining the various forms of water management and the emerging socio-spatial dynamics in the territory. The research is grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that articulates critical geography, political ecology of water, and the decolonial approach. Critical geography provided tools to understand how space is socially constructed from power relations, following the conceptual triad of perceived, conceived, and lived space. From political ecology, water was analyzed as a socially constructed element whose management reflects and reproduces socio-territorial inequalities, applying concepts such as hydrosocial cycle, hydrosocial territories, and accumulation by dispossession. The decolonial approach allowed valuing resistance dynamics and local knowledge as alternatives to hegemonic models. A qualitative methodology was implemented, including 62 semi-structured interviews with 58 diverse territorial actors, participant observation in community spaces such as aqueduct management activities and assemblies, and documentary analysis of territorial planning and historical instruments. Information was systematized through axial coding using NVivo software, identifying three central categories: peasant territorialization, deterritorialization by the Chingaza Project, and community water management processes. The results document a complete cycle of territorialization-deterritorialization-reterritorialization. Peasant communities initially transformed an unproductive latifundium space into a multidimensional living territory, a process interrupted by the Chingaza Project which, through mechanisms of dispossession for conservation, appropriated approximately 50% of the municipal territory. In response, community aqueducts and irrigation districts emerged as forms of resistance and reterritorialization. The research concludes that the implemented water extractivist model violated historically constructed peasant territorialities and generated multiple dimensions of hydro-territorial injustice, highlighting the need to transition toward models of territorial coresponsibility based on the recognition of community rights.