The moralization of hydraulics: Reflections on the normative-political dimensions of water control technology

Shah, Esha; Boelens, Rutgerd

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.02.009

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…While we have focused in this paper on mismoralization of public health, mismoralization is potentially relevant to many other areas. Technological developments in science and medicine can and have in many cases become moralized (e.g., Shah and Boelens 2021 ; Newman 2012 ; Ricart and Rico 2019 ; Mihailov et al 2021 ). Human-robot interaction is another area in which moralization may occur (see, e.g., Nyholm 2020 ; Mayor 2018 ) and where such moralization may not always be justified.…”

Section: De-moralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moralization and Mismoralization in Public Health

Kraaijeveld

Jamrozik

2022

Med Health Care and Philos

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Moralization is a social-psychological process through which morally neutral issues take on moral significance. Often linked to health and disease, moralization may sometimes lead to good outcomes; yet moralization is often detrimental to individuals and to society as a whole. It is therefore important to be able to identify when moralization is inappropriate. In this paper, we offer a systematic normative approach to the evaluation of moralization. We introduce and develop the concept of ‘mismoralization’, which is when moralization is metaethically unjustified. In order to identify mismoralization, we argue that one must engage in metaethical analysis of moralization processes while paying close attention to the relevant facts. We briefly discuss one historical example (tuberculosis) and two contemporary cases related to COVID-19 (infection and vaccination status) that we contend to have been mismoralized in public health. We propose a remedy of de-moralization that begins by identifying mismoralization and that proceeds by neutralizing inapt moral content. De-moralization calls for epistemic and moral humility. It should lead us to pull away from our tendency to moralize—as individuals and as social groups—whenever and wherever moralization is unjustified.

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Section: De-moralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moralization and Mismoralization in Public Health

Kraaijeveld

Jamrozik

2022

Med Health Care and Philos

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“…Infrastructure performs as 'hardened morality' and 'materialized power', organizing inclusion and exclusion, enforcing particular organization and ethical behavior. (Pfaffenberger 1988;Latour, 2002;Shah and Boelens, 2021). Modernist governance commonly seeks to produce hydropolitical order by re-shaping and re-signifying hydrosocial territories to produce "communities of convenience" (Valladares & Boelens, 2017;Mills-Novoa et al, 2020;Rodríguez-de-Francisco & Boelens, 2016).…”

Section: Rivers Of Scarcity Or: the Modernist Trap Of Utopianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, academic and policy institutes are not monolithic. Many state employees, professionals and scientists struggle 'from within', enlarging scope for agency within the state to support autonomous community water control (e.g., Goodwin, 2021;Shah et al, 2021;Stensrud, 2019). Illustrations range from Europe's Right2Water movement (Berge et al, 2021) to myriad public-community coalitions for solidary water governance in Latin America (e.g., Goodwin, 2019;Dupuits, 2019;Vos et al, 2020).…”

Section: Choosing Not To Survive As the Fittestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rivers of Scarcity. Utopian water regimes and flows against the current

Boelens

2022

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Utopians organized space, nature and society to perfection, including land and water governance -- rescuing society from deep-rooted crisis: “The happiest basis for a civilized community, to be universally adopted” (Thomas More, 1516). These days, similarly, well-intended utopian water governance regimes suggest radical transformations to combat the global Water Crisis, controlling deviant natures and humans. In this essay I examine water utopia and dystopia as mirror societies. Modern utopias ignore real-life water cultures, squeeze rivers dry, concentrate water for the few, and blame the victims. But water-user collectives, men and women, increasingly speak up. They ask scholars and students to help question Flying Islands experts’ claims to rationality, democracy and equity; to co-create water knowledges and co-design water governance, building rooted socionatural commons, building “riverhood”.

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“…This reminds us that, "no technology can be said to exist unless the people who use it can use it over and over again" (Pfaffenberger, 1988, p. 241). The notion that technology exists only in relation to its use through the (altered) reproduction of associated technological behaviors and institutions (Hommes et al, 2022;Shah & Boelens, 2021) is important for a better understanding of the process of institutional bricolage; especially when it concerns sociomaterial bricolage (see below). Another important notion is that 'new' technology and infrastructures are interpreted, understood, adapted, and integrated by its users in very diverse ways that often do not correspond with the original ideas of those that implement them (Bolding et al, 1995;van Halsema, 2002;Venot et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introducing 'The Material' Into Institutional Bricolagementioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-Material Bricolage: (Co)Shaping of Irrigation Institutions and Infrastructures

Mirhanoğlu

Özerol

Hoogesteger

et al. 2023

International Journal of the Commons

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Drip irrigation is often considered a technological solution to increase water use efficiency and crop productivity. However, all too often, its social and institutional entanglements are ignored. This paper treats drip irrigation as a socio-material assemblage and discusses the social and institutional changes triggered by the introduction of drip irrigation infrastructure in Ağlasun, a rural town located in the southwest of Turkey. Through an ethnographic study, we investigate how the switch from surface irrigation to drip irrigation entails an interaction of institutional re-arrangements, material infrastructures and strategizing actors to reshuffle the operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructures, water distribution rules and water pricing. Expanding the concept of institutional bricolage to socio-material bricolage, we offer a nuanced understanding of how material infrastructures and institutions are mutually shaped by individual and collective agency.

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The moralization of hydraulics: Reflections on the normative-political dimensions of water control technology

Cited by 16 publications

References 40 publications

Moralization and Mismoralization in Public Health

Moralization and Mismoralization in Public Health

Rivers of Scarcity. Utopian water regimes and flows against the current

Socio-Material Bricolage: (Co)Shaping of Irrigation Institutions and Infrastructures

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