Landscapes of debt: Urban water supply and the production of space under peripheral financialization

Despite private actors' losing interest in water utilites globally, they have become increasingly financialized in the past two decades. Puebla's water utility was privatized in 2014, although the majority of the population is poor and adequate water supply and sanitation (WSS) infrastructure has not been in place. Based on empirical research, this paper argues that in order to make sense of these developments, attention must be paid to two fundamental aspects that have so far received little attention in the literature: the subordinated nature of financialization in the Global South and the socio-spatial dimensions of the financialization of WSS. First, we argue that the appropriation of the urban water supply system by financial actors in Puebla is the outcome of a longer and broader process of financialization of the Mexican state and economy that can be characterized as peripheral financialization and that has resulted in the increasing power of elites who accumulate through rent -based activities such as finance and real estate. Second, the mobilization of WSS for financial gain involved the creation of a new urban landscape by powerful local elites, showing how financialization is spatially produced and creates new forms of highly heterogeneous cities. We conclude that the financialization of WSS is particularly profitable in the Latin American postcolonial context, which is characterized by stark inequality and a limited rule of law.