Water Conservation in Desert Cities: From the Socioecological Fix to Gestures of Endurance

Abstract

Urban water provision is the archetypal case for the recent wave of urban political ecology, using the concept of “fix” to illustrate belief in technical forms to solve socioecological problems like uneven water distribution and environmental degradation. On the one hand, this paper shows that the risks of water shortages in Arizona, USA are a technical concern. Professionals are dedicated to the promotion of water conservation to “fix” a dysfunctional hydro-social cycle. Yet, environmental organizations raise a critical approach to this “hydrocracy”. They defend local water supplies, river regeneration, and reuse as promoting a low water-use “desert lifestyle”. Building on the intellectual history of “fixes”, we apply Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “gesture”, signaling how, in places of deep water scarcity, water conservation policies remain within notions of growth, such that pauses in water availability leave open future promises of resource abundance so the moment of scarcity can be endured.

Water for whom? Desalination and the cooptation of the environmental justice frame in Southern California

“…Swyngedouw and Williams (2016) have further elaborated this idea with regard to desalination specifically, arguing that desalination is discursively powerful in its innovative appearance and status as a mega-project. However, it also constitutes a continuation of capitalist, progressive development that allows for more “business as usual,” just like other technological fixes (O’Neill and Boyer, 2020; Shoffstall and Gille, 2015; Swyngedouw, 2013).…”

Coping with scarcity: The construction of the water conservation imperative in newspapers (1999–2018)

“…However, this strategy helps individualizing responsibility for the current ecological crisis. The guilt-inducing small gestures imperative makes it indeed possible to avoid questioning the viability of limitless capitalist urbanization in the desert (Davis, 2002;O'Neill and Boyer, 2020).…”

“Demystifying the Global ‘Just Transition’—On Power Struggles and Electric Mountains”

“…While promoted with great confidence by industry officials, political candidates, and policy makers, technological fixes tend to operate more like band-aids, smoothing over surface problems rather than attending to underlying political-economic issues (Harvey, 2003; O’Neill and Boyer, 2020). Perhaps there is no greater example of this than the recent surge of interest in wind energy.…”