水—社会领域视角下的国际河流治理

INTERNATIONAL RIVER GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE LENS OF "HYDROSOCIAL TERRITORIES"

国际河流的经济、社会、生态等多重属性使之成为重要的地缘政治议题。现实主义和制度主义分析容易陷入“领域陷阱”,难以充分呈现中微观层面的多元主体互动以及权力结构和自然要素的相互塑造过程。本文在政治地理学辩证性和关系性的思维基础上,介绍“水—社会领域”概念框架的基本特征及其在国际河流治理中的运用。该框架从权力—空间关系的视角出发,包含多元尺度、多维空间、关系网络和领域建构等分析维度。研究认为,国际河流治理是领域(再)生产的过程,水资源是治理过程不可分割的组成部分,自然与社会具有相互建构的辩证关系。将政治地理学的核心概念“领域”运用于水治理研究中,重新建构本体论和认识论,对国际河流治理的地缘关系解析具有独特的地理学价值和意义。

The governance of international river is an important geopolitical issue due to its economic, social and ecological attributes. Most existing research approaches this subject from the perspectives of realism and institutionalism, which mainly focus on water-related conflicts and cooperation among different sovereign nations. Hegemonic stability and hydro-hegemony are salient theoretical examples that were conceived and developed under realistic and institutional thinking. Based on the dialectical and relational thinking of political geography, this article reviews the theoretical discussions and controversies of international river governance. It introduces the conceptual framework of“hydrosocial territories”and its application in the geopolitical analysis of international rivers. This framework investigates the spatial deployment of power and explores the natural-society relationship from four previously underexamined analytical dimensions. First, power exercises apply at multiple scales and involve interconnections and interdependence across scales. Second,the deployment of power exists in physical, institutional, and representational spaces that jointly shape rules,narratives, and meanings of water. Third, the essence of water governance is defined by relationship networks that include and exclude different actors. Last, hydrosocial territories are fluid, constructed, and contested, encapsulating diverse forms of power exercises.