1. 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

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

4. Foundation for Water and Energy Education

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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:

8. 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

10. 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

11. 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)

12. 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

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