The Biopolitics of Water: Governance, Scarcity and Populations

Description

Biopolitics refers to a form of politics concerned with administering and regulating the conditions of life at an aggregated level of populations. This book provides a biopolitical perspective on water governance and its effects. It draws on the work of Foucault to explore how notions of scarcity are used in strategies of governance and how such governance differentiates between different populations. Furthermore, the author investigates what such biopolitical regulation means for people’s lifestyles and the way they understand themselves and their moral responsibilities as humans, individuals and citizens. The book begins by investigating the global water agenda, with a particular emphasis on its focus on water for basic needs, and provides different examples of hydromentalities around the world. It also presents rich empirical details of one local case in South Africa. By carefully exploring the water 'stories' of water users, the book provides new perspectives on the relationship between water and power. Additionally, it offers an innovative methodological framework through which we can study the workings of governance more generally, and water governance specifically. It thereby contributes to the scholarship on water governance in relation to how water governance and technologies are part of producing subjectivities, notions of life and lifestyles and, more specifically, how the global water agenda can work so as to produce, or further entrench, distinctions between different lives and lifestyles. Ultimately, such differences between individuals and populations that are produced as an effect of water governance are assessed in relation to social sustainability. Cover Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Contents Acronyms and abbreviations Chapter 1: The power and politics of water The politics of water: from hydraulic societies to hydromentalities (Global) water problems as constructed Unequal power relationships and distribution of water Productive aspects of water governance/water technologies Foucauldian approaches The biopolitics of water and hydromentalities Outline of the book Notes References Chapter 2: (Green) governmentality and biopolitics Introduction A governmentality/biopolitics framework (Neo)liberalism Techniques of power Biopower and biopolitics Biopolitics and the separation of different forms of lives Governmentality, biopolitics, and the environment Problematizing the certainty of governing Environmental subjectivities/the greening of the self (Green) governmentality and the biopolitics of resource governance The population–resource nexus Liberalism, scarcity, and population The ‘Malthus effect’ and different populations Sustainable development discourse, limits, and growth Sustainable development discourse and different populations Sustainable development and basic human needs Sustainable development and resilience Conclusion Notes References Chapter 3: Global water governance: Scarcity, populations, distinctions Introduction Global water governance The emergence of a new paradigm Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) The concept of Water Security Water and Agenda 2030 Governing rationalities of global water governance Scarcity and (a particular form of ) governance Water for economic development Water for basic human needs Water for ecosystems Risk, uncertainty, and resilience Conclusion Notes References Chapter 4: Hydromentalities Introduction Hydromentalities: major paradigms The hydraulic mission The hydraulic mission challenged Contemporary water governance: neoliberal hydromentality Hydromentalities: experiences from across the globe Technologies of rule, responsibilization, and resistance Subjectivities and agency of water professionals Infrastructure, geographies of difference and identities The hydromentality of eThekwini, South Africa A regulatory framework Governing technologies: artefacts and policies Water scarcity and different populations The perception of perceptions Governing technologies: consultation, communication, and education Conclusion Notes References List of interviews Chapter 5: Understanding biopolitical ‘effects’ locally: Life(styles), subjectivities, and moral obligations Introduction Studying biopolitical ‘effects’ Narrative methodology A biopolitical reading of water narratives Exploring the biopolitics of water through (bio)narratives Productive effects of water technologies: lifestyles and subjectivities Stories of rural/urban lives Stories of struggle and of ‘zones of (in)distinction’ Stories of privilege Making sense of the right to water Water in ‘nature’, water from the grid, and the right to water FBW and improvement in life conditions FBW and social hierarchies Resistance against separation between different forms of lives The making of (un)sustainable and (ir)responsible water users Narrating frugality and collective (social) responsibility Narrating economic (ir)responsibility Narrating ecological (ir)responsibility Stories from Raising the Citizens’ Voice Individual responsibility and the importance of paying for water Conclusion Notes References Chapter 6: The biopolitics of water Introduction Environmental and water governance as biopolitical Hydromentalities Biopolitical ‘effects’ Studying ‘bionarratives’ (Beyond) neoliberal biopolitics References Index