Rethinking Political Ecologies of Water

Abstract The failure to provide a safe supply of clean drinking water to over one billion people in the world remains one of the most telling indictments of development policy and practice. A series of studies within political ecology has taken this dramatic failure as an entry point into broader questions around the operation of power in the contemporary world. From basic questions around who is to blame for this catastrophic failure, to broader questions around the consolidation of forms of rule, this work provides a crucial lens on broader social and environmental questions. This paper provides an overview of recent work on the political ecology of water as well as mobilising a series of case studies from the author's own research in Durban, South Africa.