Dr. Farhana Sultana
Book cover: Water Politics

Routledge, 2020

The book shows how both discourses and struggles around the right to water have opened new perspectives and possibilities in water governance, fostering new collective and moral claims for water justice, while effecting changes in laws and policies around the world. In light of the 2010 UN ratification on the human right to water and sanitation, shifts have taken place in policy, legal frameworks, local implementation, as well as in national dialogues. Chapters in the book illustrate the novel ways in which the right to water has been taken up in locations drawn globally, highlighting the material politics that are enabled and negotiated through this framework in order to address ongoing water insecurities. This book reflects the urgent need to take stock of debates in light of new concerns around post-neoliberal political developments, the challenges of the Anthropocene and climate change, the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the mobilizations around the right to water in the global North. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of water governance, environmental policy, politics, geography, and law. It will be of great interest to policymakers and practitioners working in water governance, as well as the human right to water and sanitation.

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Editions

  • paperback · ISBN 9781138320031 · 238 pp.
  • hardcover · ISBN 9781138320024 · 238 pp.
  • ebook · ISBN 9780429453571 · 238 pp.

Contents

  • Foreword by Leo Heller
  • 1. The Right to Water in a Global Context: Challenges and Transformations in Water Politics – Farhana Sultana and Alex Loftus
  • 2. Valuing Water: Rights, Resilience, and the UN High-Level Panel on Water – Jeremy Schmidt
  • 3. Making Space for Practical Authority: Policy Formalization and The Right to Water in Mexico – Katie Meehan
  • 4. Turning to Traditions: Three Cultural-Religious Articulations of Fresh Waters’ Value(s) in Contemporary Governance Frameworks – Christiana Zenner
  • 5. The Right to Bring Waters into Being – Jamie Linton
  • 6. The Rights to Water and Food: Exploring the Synergies – Lyla Mehta and Daniel Langmeier
  • 7. Water-Security Capabilities and the Human Right to Water – Wendy Jepson, Amber Wutich and Leila M. Harris
  • 8. Rights on the Edge of the City: Realizing of the Right to Water in Informal Settlements in Bolivia – Anna Walnycki
  • 9. Human Right to Water and Bottled Water Consumption: Governing at the Intersection of Water Justice, Rights and Ethics – Raul Pacheco-Vega
  • 10. Against the Trend: Structure and Agency in the Struggle for Public Water in Europe – Andreas Bieler
  • 11. Remunicipalization and the Human Right to Water: A Signifier Half Full? – David A. McDonald
  • 12. Citizen Mobilization for Water: The Case of Thessaloniki, Greece – Jerry van den Berge, Rutgerd Boelens and Jeroen Vos
  • 13. Race, Austerity and Water in the United States: Fighting for the Human Right to Water in Detroit and Flint, Michigan – Cristy Clark
  • 14. Class, Race, Space and the ‘Right to Sanitation’: The Limits of Neoliberal Toilet Technologies in Durban, South Africa – Patrick Bond
  • Index

Reviews & Endorsements

The right to water remains elusive for a great number of people around the world. Despite decades of efforts by activists, policy-makers, and committed scholars, access to water remains deeply contested and unevenly distributed. This superb collection teases out why this is the case and, more importantly, presents a range of actions and principles, mobilised by a great variety of communities, that open possible pathways for a more just, democratic and egalitarian distribution of a key resource for securing livelihood. This is a must read for all those who still believe that a more humane, sustainable, and egalitarian access to the earth’s waters is not only desirable, but necessary.

— Professor Erik Swyngedouw, The University of Manchester, UK

The world faces a growing water crisis. This is not just about water availability, but about distribution: who gets what and how water is used. Sultana and Loftus' book is groundbreaking. It provides a narrative of and pathways to water justice. It is a must read for anyone who cares water and our common future.

— Professor R. Quentin Grafton, The Australian National University and the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance

This collection of essays provides much-needed intellectual inspiration for re-imagining water. Its clear message is that realizing the right to water involves re-organizing and re-thinking ways of relating to water, but also requires engaging with the wider transformations needed to make this world more sustainable and just.