Beyond rules and norms: Heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility of groundwaters

Abstract

Over the last 150 years or so engineers, farmers, scientists, and many others around the globe have gained access to the waters that lie underground with drilling technology, pumps and cheap energy. Since the mid-twentieth century, a massive worldwide proliferation of deep wells has redistributed groundwaters away from springs, seeps, wells, and oases, robbing them of the water that supports local sustainable socionatural relations. The idea and social fact of groundwater has emerged in this history, and has three distinguishing features: heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility. The failure to halt depletion has prompted a turn to culture in the hope of governing the liquid sustainably.However, rather than grapple with the complexities and contradictions of heterogeneity, ubiquity, and visibility, these efforts take a rather thin view of culture-as rules, norms, and institutions to be studied, codified and deployed to address the crisis. This instrumental understanding of culture as a set of traits to be selectively used for arresting depletion has not proven effective, however, compelling us to rethink our cultural, political, and economic engagements with groundwater.

The social connectivity of subsurface flows: Towards a better integration of the vertical dimension in socio‐hydrosystem studies

“…Socio‐hydrosystems took on a vertical dimension at the end of the 19th century, with scientific and technological progress making possible the construction of deep wells and the beginning of drilling for water at an industrial scale. Today, groundwater accounts for 40% of irrigation worldwide and 50% of drinking water (Walsh, 2022). At the same time, groundwater managers are facing challenges such as decreasing recharge rates, salinization, overexploitation, and overall depletion (Bierkens & Wada, 2019; Moeck et al, 2020).…”

“…Groundwaters are heterogenous, and also ubiquitous due to their extensive distribution (Vogt & Walsh, 2021), “both on top of and within the earth with varying degrees of connectivity that depends on geology [e.g., shallow aquifer, deep aquifer, fossil aquifer, etc.] and human action [e.g., withdrawals]” (Walsh, 2022, p. 2). Recent work on groundwater has insisted on human practices and the cultural relations to groundwater and aquifers (Ballestero, 2019; Hastrup, 2013; Walsh, 2022).…”

“…and human action [e.g., withdrawals]” (Walsh, 2022, p. 2). Recent work on groundwater has insisted on human practices and the cultural relations to groundwater and aquifers (Ballestero, 2019; Hastrup, 2013; Walsh, 2022). Framed as a commodity that can be banked or spent, groundwater also possesses deep cultural significance tied to its historical importance as a major water source in many parts of the world.…”

Moral economies for water: A framework for analyzing norms of justice, economic behavior, and social enforcement in the contexts of water inequality

“…Critical institutional scholars question how people and communities respond to the external imposition of new institutional rules and norms by elites with limited knowledge or understanding of local conditions and desires (Cleaver & de Koning, 2015; Kashwan et al, 2021). Some have also called for greater focus on nuanced dynamics of exclusion, power, and injustice within commons institutions (Harrison, 2020; Kashwan et al, 2021; Walsh, 2022), including cautiously using the too often oversimplified concept of “community” in institutional analysis (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999; Faas & Marino, 2020). Here, we can see that an examination of the three elements of the moral economies model may help to guide investigations of “institutional bricolage” in which people “tinker” with and refashion institutional rules and norms with the goal of transforming old institutions and reinventing new ones (Cleaver & de Koning, 2015).…”

Water Futures in Australia: Materialities, Temporalities, Imaginaries

“…That is, water matters in both ontological and epistemological terms. Edited comparative collections such as ‘People at the Well’ (Hahn et al 2012), and reviews in the anthropology of water (Ballestero 2019a; Hastrup 2013; Orlove and Caton 2010; Strang 2005; Vogt and Walsh 2021; Walsh 2022) all emphasise ‘waterworlds’ – the bio‐social importance and culturally imbued experience of water, and its multiplicity and ubiquity. The focus on water includes cultural visions of good water futures in relation to living in the Anthropocene (see Cattelino et al 2019) and crucial questions regarding the diverse economics of such futures (Wutich and Beresford 2019).…”