Adjudicating hydrosocial territory in New Mexico

The US state of New Mexico shifted its management and legal treatment of water in the 20th century to a private property access right, weakening communal notions of water. This article explains how New Mexico has redefined and territorialized water rights as private property through the adjudication process and administrative governance rules. State adjudication of water rights disrupts horizontal social relations. The process also results in territorialization - not of fluid water per se - but of water users themselves. As water users have adjusted to this rescaling of governance, the state has found new ways to govern users vertically through water-crisis measures.