hydrousmantle

shifts in water governance - problems of legitimacy & accountability
Shifts in Water Governance is a series of academic research explorations funded by a grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research - Shifts
in Governance Programme. The goal of SiG is to describe and explain the transformation of traditional state-based governing mechanisms and the advancement
of new arrangements of governance in the private, semi-private and the public sphere, involving governmental and non-governmental actors and agencies at
various levels of organisation (local, regional, national, transnational and global). Many issues of governability, accountability, legitimacy and responsiveness
arise because of such shifts. Their interaction constitutes the focus of this research. read more

H Y D R O U S - sts and the arts read contemporary shifts in water governance
H Y D R O U S is an interdisciplinary scholarly roundtable and arts event brings together new studies by scholars working at the intersection of science and
technology studies and water governance studies. Our aim is to gather together and contribute to the formation of what is now a nascent zone of
sts-inflected research concerned with social struggles organized specifically around the management of water. In diverse spaces of our planet, the past
few decades have been characterized by uneven transformations of traditional state-based governing. As such new governance forms unfold, there are
also many conflicts occurring world-wide over water management, in particular over water rights and the perceived threats of privatization as a mode of
governance. With respect to these fields of transition, the scholarly tools and objectives of science and technology studies fruitfully can be brought to bear.
For example, while modes of ownership do have implications for the contours of contemporary water struggles, it is also important to develop theoretically
and empirically informed understandings of the underlying social, technologicl and administrative processes with which they are associated. The papers
collected here include case work in diverse geographic settings (spanning regions across Central and Latin America, Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, and
North America) and with respect to diverse socio-technical agents and regimes (for example, from biophysical sciences and capacity development
practitioners to wetland mitigation bankers and indigenous technology reclaimers). Through collective dialogue the hydrous sessions will illustrate some of the
pressing issues in contemporary water governance, and map existing and emerging sts constructs and methodological techniques that are geared
specifically for reading them. H Y D R O U S will be held in conjunction with the joint meetings of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and the
European Association for Social Studies of Science (EASST) - August 20-23, 2008 at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. read more

w a t e r technology and management in I n d i a
As an aspect of my research on shifts in water governance, this work in India is concerned with understanding the ways in which global trends in water
governance manifest in this unique context. I am using ethnographic fieldwork and video documentation technqiues to represent and characterize various water
governance practices 'on the ground' in India. The project entails two inter-related inquiries, one which concerns emerging Indian markets for water and
waste-water treatment technologies, and another which concerns decentralized, community based water management practices. WIth respect to both these
inquiries, I am integrating a videographic documentary project with a collaborator, Meredith Anderson. Meredith is a sociologist who specializes in scientific
profesionalization among women in southern India. Together we are creating a documentary that focuses on how water technology and management technqiues
are being articulated in the context of India's water service challenges. In January and February, 2008, Meredith and I were on location in and around Delhi and in
the state of Maharashtra; we are currently processing the material, some of which will be up on this site in the near future. read more