Water Governance: Retheorizing Politics

• Main Author: Nelson, Joanne (auth)
• Other Authors: Harris, Leila M. (auth), Shah, Sameer (auth), Wilson, Nicole (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2019
• Subjects: Philosophy; orientation knowledge; WEF Nexus; Latin America; water politics; water rights; political ecology; Chile; national interest; Africa; depoliticization; social control; Central Asia; Belo Monte; nibi (water); Canada; planning; Indigenous water governance; scale politics; UNDRIP; spatio-temporal; women; participation; participatory development; FPIC; remunicipalization; governmentalities; integrated water resource management (IWRM); colonization; drinking water; power; free; community-based research; environmental flows; Two-Eyed Seeing; Indigenous water; water security; water management; water colonialism; hydropower; groundwater; packaged drinking water (PDW); repoliticization; Jakarta; Indigenous knowledge; Tajikistan; governance; settler colonialism; decision-making processes; informality; first nations; Water Users' Associations; irrigation; OECD; giikendaaswin; Brazil; UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Lesotho; environmental justice; hydrosocial; Colombia; law; Cochabamba; kitchen gardens; desalination; mining; water; environmental assessment; First Nations; water quality; Anishinabek; urban India; urban water infrastructure; re-theorizing; politics; bottled water; Egypt; urban water; Bolivia; dams; Yukon; decentralization; narrative ethics; water justice; water insecurity; political ontology; religious difference; energy policy; international development; water ethics; Cairo; infrastructure; legal geography; practices of mediation; water governance; risk; Indonesia; prior and informed consent; PES
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning-and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.