Grassroots scalar politics in the Peruvian Andes: Mobilizing allies to defend community waters in the Upper Pampas watershed

This chapter shows how Andean communities, in defence of their waters, successfully engage in grassroots scalar politics to create and cultivate alliances and associations with national NGOs, regional governments, transnational actors such as the Latin American Water Tribunal (TLA) and broader water education and solidarity networks. The lens of grassroots scalar politics offers an entry point to improve the understanding of the communities' dynamic multi-scalar associations and their strategic deployment of scale – such as regional, watershed level or the particular ecological zone of bofedales. An important line of inquiry that remains open in improving our understanding of how communities create such alliances is analysing the crucial role that community representatives play in the process of advancing grassroots scalar politics. What this case highlights is the crucial role that networking and alliances play as a means for local actors to upscale their struggles through grassroots scalar politics.