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