Water: Political, biopolitical, material

The papers in this special issue collectively pose a series of compelling questions. How is the relationship between water and humans mediated by socio-technology? And, in turn, how is socio-technology mediated by water – both culturally and biophysically? Moreover (and this, I think, is the most intriguing question): How does the study of water prompt us to rethink the notion of techno-politics, and to reframe water as simultaneously socio-technical and socio-natural? In exploring some of the context for (and perhaps offering preliminary answers to) these questions, let me begin with an assertion: to engage with the materiality of water (as these papers do) is to begin from the assumption that water is both political and biopolitical. Below, I explore each of these facets of water, in turn.

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