The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water June 18, 2018 The hydrosocial cycle: a relational-dialectical approach to water IHE, Delft 20 July 2017 Dr Jessica Budds School of International Development Title slide

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

Foundation for Water and Energy Education

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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