Document Type
Article
Abstract
Of all things, water is among the most difficult to pin down. It is nevertheless characteristic of modernity that we ascribe to it an essence, on which basis particular kinds of human-water relations are made possible while others are denied. The ascription of an essential identity to water constitutes a social and political act by which it is both made known to people and made available for people. This paper explores the implications of ascribing to water an identity as "resource." Water was pronounced a resource in the United States early in the last century in the context of the conservation movement, the development of the hydrological sciences and growth of the state as an agent of water control. As a resource, water has been made available in ways that correspond to what historian Samuel P. Hays described (critically) as "the gospel of efficiency" and economist-geographer Erich Zimmermann put forward (uncritically) as the "functional approach". The political implications of this manner of disclosing and disposing of water are explored in terms of who may get it and for what purposes. Finally, the paper considers the possibility of disestablishing water's resource-identity, and the opening that this presents for a cultural politics of water.
Repository Citation
Linton, Jamie. "The Social Nature of Natural Resources - The Case of Water." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 6, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1–27. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol6/iss3/6
Included in
American Politics Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Water Resource Management Commons