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The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water

The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water. IHE, Delft 20 July 2017 Dr Jessica Budds School of International Development. Outline. From the hydrological to the hydrosocial cycle Hydrosocial relations Conceptualising the hydrosocial cycle

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The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water

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  1. The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water IHE, Delft 20 July 2017 Dr Jessica Budds School of International Development

  2. Outline • From the hydrological to the hydrosocial cycle • Hydrosocial relations • Conceptualising the hydrosocial cycle • The hydrosocial cycle as an analytical framework • Final remarks

  3. Foundation for Water and Energy Education

  4. The hydrological cycle • Limitations of the hydrological cycle • abstracts physical processes from social context • universal model • historical context • privileges technical expertise • From water management to water governance • human influences on water resources and cycles • IWRM to governance • requires new concept of water circulation • Rethinking society’s relationship with water • from water’s social links to its social nature • water is socially constructed and produced • Linton’s ‘modern water’ (H2O) • water internalises politics

  5. Hydrosocial relations • Hydrosocial dialectics • Wittfogel’s hydraulic society • Hydrosocial hybridity • Swyngedouw’s hybrid water • “water in a cup…” • society and water related internally rather than externally • process over form • Hydrosocial relationality and materiality • social relations shape, and are shaped by, water • water’s agency and rhythms • experiential dimension • cultural meanings

  6. Swyngedouw’s water in a cup • For example, if I were to capture some water in a cup and excavate the networks that brought it there, 'I would pass with continuity from the local to the global, from the human to the non-human' (Latour, 1993: 121). These flows would narrate many interrelated tales, or stories, of social groups and classes and the powerful socio-ecological processes that produce social spaces of privilege and exclusion, of participation and marginality; chemical, physical and biological reactions and transformations, the global hydrological cycle and global warming; capital, machinations, and strategies and knowledges of dam builders, urban land developers, and engineers; the passage from river to urban reservoir, and the geo-political struggles between regions and nations. • Swyngedouw, 1999: 445-446

  7. Hydrosocial relations • Hydrosocial dialectics • Wittfogel’s hydraulic society • Hydrosocial hybridity • Swyngedouw’s hybrid water • “water in a cup…” • society and water related internally rather than externally • process over form • Hydrosocial relationality and materiality • social relations shape, and are shaped by, water • water’s agency and rhythms • experiential dimension • cultural meanings

  8. Conceptualising the hydrosocial cycle • “Water flows [uphill] to money” • represents hydrological and political factors • focuses on material flows • shows how people shape water • The hydrosocial cycle is a process through which water and society make and remake each other over space and time • water is produced by, and produces, hydrosocial arrangements • ‘cycle’ = continual shift in hydrosocial relations • power in and through water, not just around or over • agential role of water

  9. Hydrosocial cycle as analytical framework • Questions the nature of water • no ‘natural’ state - produced by social circumstances • heterogeneity of ‘water’ • e.g. desalinated water (McDonnell, 2014) • Interrogates how water is made known and represented • hydrological concepts, methods and data • e.g. ‘watershed’ (Cohen and Davidson, 2011) • Reveals power and politics • social circumstances of production and circulation of ‘water’ • different realities of water to different actors • e.g. French hydrosystems (Bouleau, 2014) • Looks beyond the water • from role of politics in water to role of water in politics • e.g. Chile’s water markets model (Budds, 2013)

  10. Final remarks • From human-water interactions to hydrosocial relations • not about coupling hydrological and social ‘systems’ • not about integrating social factors into hydrology • but how social relations produce and are produced by ‘water’ • and how hydrosocial arrangements are continually shifting • Framework for critical political ecologies of water • how is water socially constructed and produced? • how is water made known? • how does water embed and reflect power and politics? • what is the bigger picture beyond the water? • Potential for insights to inspire hydrosocial change • undermine forms of power that produce exclusion • challenge discourses and promote structural change • water security

  11. Water is not about water, water is about building people’s institutions and power to take control over decisions. • Sunita Narain, 2005

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