The Business of Water: Market Environmentalism in the Water Sector

Abstract

This article reviews the literature relevant to market environmentalism in the water sector, focusing on five themes: the privatization of resource ownership and management, the commercialization of resource management organizations, the environmental valuation and pricing of resources, the marketization of trading and exchange mechanisms, and the liberalization of governance. For each dimension, the discussion addresses a topic of contemporary academic interest (and policy and political relevance): privatization and protest, the contradictions of commercialization, the distinction between environmental valuation and commodification, the multiplication of modes of marketization, and the limits to the liberalization of environmental governance. Specific attention is given to unresolved questions and tensions in the debate over market environmentalism, particularly the tension between human rights and environmental rights and among state, market, and community roles in water management.

Like Oil and Water in the American West: Water Market Access amid Unconventional Oil Production in Colorado

“…For instance, the United Kingdom’s attempts to privatize its water system led to exponential rate increases, thousands of utility workers being terminated, and millions of individuals having their water service shut off until the efforts were reversed in 1997 (Bakker ). Outcomes in less wealthy, developing nations or regions can be even more stark and unjust for poor populations (Bakker ).…”

“…Neoliberal policymaking approaches have led to an explosion of marketizing water via private‐public partnerships. The World Bank, for example, often requires that borrowing nations’ water systems be at least partially privatized (Barlow ; Goldman , ; Shiva ), which can allow a few corporations to charge exorbitant rates for access to water (Bakker , ). In the developed world, these partnerships become more common as expensive water infrastructure ages and massive repairs loom, or as more common natural disasters such as flooding impact water infrastructure in places like Colorado.…”

Back on the water margin: the ethical fixes of sustainable water provisions in rural China

“…Yunnan, in particular, has recently become a focus for the popular and organized antagonism against contemporary water policies and governance (Jun ; ; Mertha ; Pia ; Zhu : 63‐6). Crucially, there are many in China and elsewhere who are being directly or indirectly denied access to sufficient and safe irrigation and domestic water by these very policies (Bakker : 478; Barnes : 70; Metha : 2; Wilmsen, Webber & Duan : 39‐40; Wutich : 23).…”

“…Contributing to emergent conversations in anthropology and political ecology about bureaucratic agency, the relationship between ethics and politics, and the production of public goods under austerity capitalism and market environmentalism (Bakker ; Bear ; Bear & Mathur ; Fassin ; ; Graeber ; ; Lora‐Wainwright ; Strang ; ), this article is a study of the inner workings of ethics in present‐day Chinese local bureaucratic practices of government and public goods provision. In this respect, its main theoretical contribution will be to explore the ways in which the ethical agency of street‐level bureaucrats emerges in relation to and may be seen as opposing, or else reconciling, often contradictory processes of public good provision under austerity and green capitalism.…”

Geo-Electrical and Borehole Investigation of Groundwater in Some Basalts on the South-Eastern Flank of Mount Cameroon, West Africa

“…Thus as the need for portable water increases, great care should be taken to ensure sustainability of the water resources with respect to quantity and quality. Challenges of water resources exploitation combined with an increasing population, therefore, presents greater challenges to stakeholders at all levels [1] [2].…”