The Blame Game in Water Extractivism: Case studies from Chile

How do key stakeholders shift blame for water crises, leaving local communities to shoulder the consequences? Using Chile as the backdrop, we debunk the layers of blame narratives in three case studies—avocado farming, forestry and rural gentrification. Through a sociohydrological lens, the study makes a case for rethinking how we manage water and hold stakeholders accountable. Water extractivism isn’t just about moving water from one place to another—it’s about who controls it, who benefits, who’s left behind and who is blamed for it all. Chile offers a prime example, where decades of neoliberal policy have prioritised corporate profits over people’s basic human rights. The paper aims to unpack the complex dynamics of water governance by looking at how social and political forces shape water injustice.

Blame as a Strategy

Powerful stakeholders often deflect responsibility. Some common tactics include discrediting critics (i.e., environmental activists are dismissed as obstacles to progress), twisting the narrative (i.e., painting a rosier picture of industrial practices) or pushing neoliberal ideals (i.e., communities are told to ‘reinvent themselves’). As a result, the root causes—flawed policies and overwhelming corporate power—are left unaddressed, while the blame is shifted onto affected communities for their hardships.

Three case studies

We explored three real-world examples from Chile. Each one provides insights into how water extractivism plays out and how blame gets passed around.

• i) Avocado, or "Green Gold": Avocados are celebrated as a superfood, but in Chile, they’ve become a symbol of water injustice. In regions like Valparaiso, intensive avocado farming consumes staggering amounts of water, leaving little for local communities. With groundwater depletion, families struggle for drinking water while depending on avocado jobs. Meanwhile, industry leaders frame water scarcity as a "management issue," without addressing their disproportionate use.
• ii) Forestry model: Chile’s forestry boom, fuelled by exotic species like eucalyptus and pine, was hailed as an economic success. But these fast-growing plantations have come at a cost, including ecological fallout (i.e., reduced stream flows, eroded soils and disappearing biodiversity), victims of extractivism being left out of the equation (i.e., small farmers and Indigenous forest-dependent communities) or deflection of responsibility (i.e., emphasising companies’ GDP contributions).
• iii) Urban-Rural Migration: The rise of remote work and affordable housing in rural areas has led to a surge in rural gentrification. But this trend isn’t without consequences, as shown by the total collapse of water bodies such as Aculeo Lake, once a thriving reservoir. This results from a combination of unregulated housing, agricultural demands and poor planning. Responsibility, however, is concealed by using an ‘easy’ scapegoat (i.e., climate change), overshadowing policy failures.

Conclusion

We uncovered common strategies being used in public discourse to both avoid responsibility and project responsibility onto others – key to address for effective water governance. Such strategies gaslight the victims of extractivism, instilling the belief that they themselves are responsible for their water poverty. By exposing how blame is weaponised, the paper calls for accountability to support fairer governance.