Resumen de The socio-cognitive dimension of water: the case of politicisation of water in barcelona:
The thesis studies the discursive construction of cognitive frames in the water sector in order to understand the dynamics of politicisation and depoliticisation in the water conflict in Barcelona between 2011 and 2020. The focus is placed on a particular type of politicisation at work in our case study: the populist politicisation. Using Critical Discourse Analysis as a method, the thesis will address the following research questions: (1) To what extent is the politicisation of water in Barcelona a populist one and to what extent does it challenge the water paradigm in the city? (2) How do private actors react to the politicisation of water in the city and why does it matter? (3) Is Circular Economy a de-politicised area in the interaction between the actors in conflict? At theoretical level, the work articulates a novel conceptual framework which critically combines the literatures on populism, politicisation, and construction of discursive coalitions to analyse the water conflict in Barcelona. At empirical level, this conceptual framework is used to correct the one-sidedness of existing studies on politicisation of water or “remunicipalisation” which focus mainly on the public actors and disregard to a great extent the reaction of private actors.
