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abstract |
Water is one of the most pressing concerns of our time. This book argues for the importance
of water as a cultural object, and as a source of complex meanings and practices in
everyday life, embedded in the socio-economics of local water provision. Each chapter
aims to capture one element of water’s fluid existence in the world, as material object,
cultural representation, as movement, as actor, as practice and as ritual. The book
explores the interconnectedness of humans and non-humans, of nature and culture, and
the complex entanglements of water in all its many forms; how water constitutes multiple
differences and is implicated in relations of power, often invisible, but present
nevertheless in the workings of daily life in all its rhythms and forms; and water’s
capacity to assemble a multiplicity of publics and constitute new socialities and
connections. Cities, and their inhabitants, without water will die, and so will their
cultures. |