1st Edition

The Politics of Fresh Water Access, conflict and identity

Edited By Catherine M. Ashcraft, Tamar Mayer Copyright 2017
    244 Pages 27 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    260 Pages 27 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Water scarcity is not simply the result of what nature has to offer but always involves power relations and political decisions. This volume discusses the politics of the freshwater crisis, specifically how access to water is determined in different regions and historical periods, how conflict is constructed and managed, and how identity and efforts to control water systems, through development, technologies, and institutions, shape one another. 

    The book analyzes responses to the water crisis as efforts to mitigate water insecurity and as expressions of collective identity that legitimate, resist, or seek to transform existing inequalities. The chapters focus on different processes that contribute to freshwater scarcity, including land use decisions, pollution, privatization, damming, climate change, discrimination, water management institutions and technology. Case studies are included from North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and New Zealand.

    1. The Politics of Fresh Water: Setting the Stage 

    Tamar Mayer and Catherine M. Ashcraft 

    2. Ancient Roman Water Rights and Commons Theory 

    Cynthia J. Bannon 

    3. Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Water Pollution: The Case of the Matanza-Riachuelo Basin in Argentina 

    Daniel Ryan and Andrés Napoli 

    4. Does River Basin Governance Mean Wider Access to River Management? A Long-term Perspective from the Tennessee, Columbia, and Connecticut Rivers 

    Eve Vogel 

    5. Shifting Currents in Water Diplomacy: Negotiating Conflict in the Danube and Nile River Basins 

    Catherine M. Ashcraft 

    6. The Era of Big Dam Building: It ain’t Over ‘til it’s Over 

    Francis J. Magilligan, Chris S. Sneddon, and Coleen A. Fox 

    7. Oil and Water Don’t Mix: Impacts of Oil and Gas Development on Sakhalin’s Water Resources 

    Jessica K. Graybill 

    8. The Plight of New Zealand’s Watersheds 

    Michael Vincent McGinnis 

    9. Cultural Water Wars: Power and Hegemony in the Semiotics of Water 

    David Groenfeldt 

    10. Theorizing Gender, Ethnic Difference, and Inequality in Relation to Water Access and Politics in Southeastern Turkey 

    Leila M. Harris 

    11. Water, Life, and Community in the Arid Realm: The Curious Case of Karez and Acequia 

    Daanish Mustafa 

    12. The Politics of Muddled Waters in Gujarat: A Religious Nationalist Development Model’s Treatment of Water 

    Pushpa Iyer 

    13. In Hidden View: How Water became a Catalyst for Indigenous Farmworker Resistance in Baja California, Mexico 

    Marcos López 

    14. From Management to Governance: Rethinking Water Policy and Privatization on Easter Island 

    Maria Alessandra Woolson 

    15. Strange Waters: From Confluence to Vortex in the Los Angeles Basin 

    T. S. McMillin

    Biography

    Catherine M. Ashcraft is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire, USA. 

    Tamar Mayer is the Robert R. Churchill Professor of Geosciences and Director of both the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs and the Program in International and Global Studies at Middlebury College, USA.