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Recent studies that emphasize the contested nature of resource allocation address the politics of periurban development. However, the issue of conflicts and cooperation in periurban contexts continues to remain weakly studied. Based on the study of periurban Gurgaon in North-West India, this paper unravels the different types of conflicts and cooperation that have emerged around land and water, drawing insights from conflict/cooperation studies and urban political ecology. We focus on how changes in land-use bring about changes in water use, access and practices in periurban Gurgaon, giving rise to new forms of conflicts, conflicts of interest and cooperation. Conflicts over land and water are linked to the changing characteristics of land and water appropriation that has occurred in the aftermath of neoliberal reforms. Drawing insights from urban political ecolog perspective, we show how periurban areas are systematically undermined through the acquisition of land and water to serve urban expansion and growth. We conclude that periurban conflicts are rooted in the issue of land-use change and are fundamentally tied to the politics of urbanization and its impact on periurban areas. These processes give rise to conflicts of interest and explicit conflicts, whilst creating new forms of cooperation. Cooperation is exemplified by emerging forms of collective action over the use of wastewater and groundwater. The paper distinguishes between conflict and cooperation but concludes that these are in fact not mutually exclusive; rather points along a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is located at the intersection of three canals in periurban Gurugram. Two of these canals were built to provide water for the growing city of Gurugram and one of them carries the wastewater of the city back to the villages. These canals cut through periurban villages that are excluded in principle from taking benefit of these canals. They are meant to be at their receiving end, as recipients of these waters. The paper, using a socio-technical lens, explores the mixed impacts of these canals on the villages through which they traverse. The paper further describes the strategies that periurban communities devise to circumvent the situation of exclusion. Using a qualitative, ethnographic research design, the paper describes the socio-technical mediation of periurban water insecurity, focusing on the mix of technologies and institutions that spring up around these canals that shape the periurban water users’ access to water. The paper concludes that approaches for promoting community resilience and periurban water security need to start from an understanding of the strategies devised by periurban communities to improve their access to water. In the larger discourse on building community resilience in the face of urbanization and climate change it is important to pay attention to local norms of cooperation that enable periurban communities to access water, rather than start from a premise that water insecurity caused by urbanization and climate change will lead to conflicts or necessitate capacity-building to promote avoid conflict and promote cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common property resources (CPRs) have provided a basis for sustenance to countless households, especially those that lack access to private assets. Several factors have eroded the access of CPR dependent communities, such as, conscious policy decisions of the state, elite domination, the process of land consolidation and commercialization. In the period of neo-liberal reforms in India, after 1991, the nature of threats to the commons has changed. Emerging factors such as urbanization, land acquisition and real estate development have played a more significant role in depleting the CPRs. The commons have increasingly come to bear the ecological foot-print of urbanization as they got acquired or encroached upon for urban expansion and required infrastructure. This compromises the livelihood security of those who depend on them for sustenance. There is a need for debate on alternative and more sustainable models of urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how urbanization processes and urban expansion intersect with social and power relations to reduce the access of periurban communities to common property resources (CPRs). Unequal power structures mean that certain groups are deprived of access to village CPRs. Processes of urban expansion further reduce access to CPRs, as the latter are acquired to support urban expansion. Though rural–urban transformations are characterized by the emergence of new sources of irrigation such as wastewater, not all are able to benefit from them. The acquisition of common property grazing lands to support the drinking water needs of the city affects the livelihood of livestock dependent population, that shift to casual labor. This also translates into a shift from grazing, the domain of men in the household, to stall-feeding, the domain of women, and thereby creating additional responsibilities for women in natural resource collection. The demise of CPRs such as village ponds with the increased pressure on groundwater resources increase the drudgery of women and marginalized groups in accessing water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of urbanization for water security and human health and well-being in four peri-urban South Asian locations, namely Khulna in Bangladesh, Kathmandu in Nepal, and Gurgaon and Hyderabad in India. It describes the implications of the urbanization process for water access in communities in the peripheral areas of cities. It further discusses the implications of this for the health and well-being of peri-urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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• There is a need for a closer understanding of transitions in periurban contexts. • There is a difference in North-South experience of Periurbanization. • Periubanization is better understood as concept and process rather than spatially. • Policy prescription for periurban spaces must pay heed to the implication of the periurban nature of the context. This paper reviews efforts at defining, conceptualizing and demarcating the periurban. We draw on different perspectives in conceptualizing and defining the periurban, employing a combination of primary data and a review of the global literature on periurban processes. The primary data is a result of longitudinal research following an empirically – inductive approach to arrive at this understanding of a periurban space and dynamics. The literature on the experience of periurbanization in India and other cities around the globe has been drawn upon; we look at different approaches and methods used to delineate, define and characterize periurban spaces as well as to address the governance and natural resource management challenges confronted by them. The limitations of these approaches are described. We conclude by making a case for a deeper understanding of the processes of transition underway in periurban contexts. These should inform approaches to policy and interventions, as well as shape efforts at theorizing about the periurban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]