Perceptions of Water (In)Justice in Island Destinations : Insights from Farmers in Water-Scarce Öland, Sweden

Abstract: While the demand for fresh water is increasingly growing, securing water access for all communities is impeded by the impacts of climate change, imposing worldwide challenges to provide sufficient water. In many regions, these water challenges are additionally intensified due to tourism and the high-water need of the industry. This includes the Swedish island destination Öland, which has been investigated in this study. While water provision in tourism destinations is challenging due to seasonality, local needs and water relations are additionally often overlooked due to the focus on the economic benefits. Hence, water injustices caused by tourism have been increasingly reported. For the farmers, who are just like the tourism industry highly dependent on water, problems with the resource increasingly threaten their livelihoods. As research about water injustices is crucial but remains scarce, this thesis addressed this issue by investigating how farmers construct water issues, and how those issues link to perceptions of injustice. For this purpose, the notion of recognition was used as a lens to investigate justice issues. By conducting 10 qualitative in-depth interviews with farmers and reconstructing their narratives revealing how they perceive misrecognition, this study found subsequent differences in how farmers on Öland construct water issues. Hence, depending on the location on the island, farming practices, and water source, water issues differed. Three main water issues could be identified;missing municipal access, problems in securing water access for irrigation, and water issues caused by tourism. All of them could be linked to different theories of misrecognition, demonstrating the injustices that farmers on Ölandare perceiving. However, while the lack of recognition could be illustrated, the major issue for the farmers remains the natural impacts of climate change.