TY - JOUR
T1 - Repairing urban water governance through informality
T2 - comparing governance capacities for reparation in Indian cities
AU - Mungekar, Neha
AU - Hölscher, Katharina
AU - Janssen, Annelli
AU - Loorbach, Derk
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Authors.
PY - 2025/4
Y1 - 2025/4
N2 - Addressing water challenges in resource-constrained ‘Southern’ cities requires ‘reparation’, a transformative governance approach rooted in restorative justice. In India, formal governance often struggles to tackle social stratification and colonial legacies effectively, sometimes even reinforcing them. This study compares how informality can foster reparative transformation towards the water-sensitive city approach, further referred to as ‘water sensitivity’ in secondary cities like Bhuj and Bhopal. Our findings reveal that informal strategies foster consolidative and jugaadu (innovation within constraints) capacities, which help reveal the multifaceted nature of water problems, dismantle hierarchical power structures, promote care, and enable the improvisations crucial for reparation. However, informality also risks perpetuating existing inequalities and may overlook long-term environmental sustainability without a clear normative focus on reparation. To address this, combining informal approaches within formal regulatory frameworks mitigates the instability and lack of sustainability inherent in informality. While informal strategies provide flexibility and innovation, formal frameworks offer the necessary stability, legitimacy, and continuity, ensuring the embedding of reparative efforts in the socio-cultural fabric. In conclusion, informality is critical to reparative efforts as it facilitates the incorporation of transdisciplinary perspectives from non-experts and sustains necessary improvisations through fostering a sense of care, ultimately advancing water-sensitive governance.
AB - Addressing water challenges in resource-constrained ‘Southern’ cities requires ‘reparation’, a transformative governance approach rooted in restorative justice. In India, formal governance often struggles to tackle social stratification and colonial legacies effectively, sometimes even reinforcing them. This study compares how informality can foster reparative transformation towards the water-sensitive city approach, further referred to as ‘water sensitivity’ in secondary cities like Bhuj and Bhopal. Our findings reveal that informal strategies foster consolidative and jugaadu (innovation within constraints) capacities, which help reveal the multifaceted nature of water problems, dismantle hierarchical power structures, promote care, and enable the improvisations crucial for reparation. However, informality also risks perpetuating existing inequalities and may overlook long-term environmental sustainability without a clear normative focus on reparation. To address this, combining informal approaches within formal regulatory frameworks mitigates the instability and lack of sustainability inherent in informality. While informal strategies provide flexibility and innovation, formal frameworks offer the necessary stability, legitimacy, and continuity, ensuring the embedding of reparative efforts in the socio-cultural fabric. In conclusion, informality is critical to reparative efforts as it facilitates the incorporation of transdisciplinary perspectives from non-experts and sustains necessary improvisations through fostering a sense of care, ultimately advancing water-sensitive governance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105004225718&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2166/wp.2025.273
DO - 10.2166/wp.2025.273
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105004225718
SN - 1366-7017
VL - 27
SP - 521
EP - 539
JO - Water Policy
JF - Water Policy
IS - 4
ER -