This publication belongs to the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network Working Papers Series (http://waterlat.org/publications/working-papers-series/) This issue was developed as a joint activity of two of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network’s Thematic Areas (TAs): TA3, the Urban Water Cycle and Essential Public Services, and TA9, Water and Production. TA3 brings together academics, students, professionals working in the public sector, workers’ unions, practitioners from Non-Governmental Organizations, activists and members of civil society groups, and representatives of communities and users of public services, among others. The remit of this TA is broad, as the name suggests, but it has a strong focus on the political ecology of urban water, with emphasis on the politics of essential water services (both in urban and rural areas). Key issues addressed within this framework have been the neoliberalization of water services, social struggles against privatization and mercantilization of these services, the politics of public policy and management in the sector, water inequality and injustice, and the contradictions and conflicts surrounding the status of water and water services as a public good, as a common good, as a commodity, as a citizenship right, and more recently, as a human right. TA9 also brings together academics, students, practitioners, and non-academic actors, and focuses on water as a factor of production present in all human activities. This particular issue of the Working Papers brings together members of both Thematic Areas and addresses the significance of community participation in the organization, management, and monitoring of water sources, water and sanitation services, and irrigation water used by small scale producers like family farmers. The collection has been edited by Jaime Paneque-Gálvez and Marcela Morales-Magaña, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Campus Morelia, Michoacán, México. All articles present research results, some originated from recent doctoral dissertations, and are partly based on paper presentations made at the IX International Meeting of the WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network that took place in Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil, on 3-7 September 2018.