Just as space, territory and society can be socially and politically co-constructed, so can water, and thus the construction of hydraulic infrastructures can be mobilised by politicians to consolidate their grip on power while nurturing their own vision of what the nation is or should become. This book delves into the complex and often hidden connection between water, technological advancement and the nation-state, addressing two major questions. First, the arguments deployed consider how water as a resource can be ideologically constructed, imagined and framed to create and reinforce a national identity, and secondly, how the idea of a nation-state can and is materially co-constituted out of the material infrastructure through which water is harnessed and channelled. The book consists of 13 theoretical and empirical interdisciplinary chapters covering four continents. The case studies cover a diverse range of geographical areas and countries, including China, Cyprus, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Nepal and Thailand, and together illustrate that the meaning and rationale behind water infrastructures goes well beyond the control and regulation of water resources, as it becomes central in the unfolding of power dynamics across time and space.

The Nation State of Israel is a short and concise overview of Israel that includes: • its Patriarchal history since Abraham; • its Geography and Environment; • its Economy, Culture, and Demographics; • its Government and Legal System; • Zionism and the Holocaust; • its conflicts and peace since 1948.

Energy related infrastructures are crucial to political organization. They shape the contours of states and international bodies, as well as corporations and communities, framing their material existence and their fears and idealisations of the future. Ethnographies of Power brings together ethnographic studies of contemporary entanglements of energy and political power. Revisiting classic anthropological notions of power, it asks how changing energy related infrastructures are implicated in the consolidation, extension or subversion of contemporary political regimes and discovers what they tell us about politics today.

This book examines Nile water security through the morphology of the river: it uses the always changing form of the river as a theoretical and empirical device to map and understand how infrastructures and discourses dynamically interact with the Nile. By bringing a history of two centuries of dam development on the Nile in relation with the drainage of a hill slope in Ethiopia on the one hand and irrigation reform in Sudan on the other, the author shows how the scales, units and ‘populations’ figuring in projects to securitize the river emerge through the rearrangement of its water and sediments. The analysis of ‘Making water security’ is more than yet another story of how modern projects of water security have legitimized often violent dispossessions of Nile land and water. It shows how no water user is confined by the roles assigned by project engineers and planners. As ongoing modern ‘development’ of the river reduces the prospects for new large diversions of water, the targeted subjects of development and modernization make use of newly opened spaces to carve out their own projects. They creatively mobilize old irrigation and drainage infrastructures in ways that escape the universal logic of water security.

Water acquisition, storage, allocation and distribution are intensely contested in our society, whether, for instance, such issues pertain to a conflict between upstream and downstream farmers located on a small stream or to a large dam located on the border of two nations. Water conflicts are mostly studied as disputes around access to water resources or the formulation of water laws and governance rules. However, explicitly or not, water conflicts nearly always also involve disputes among different philosophical views. The contributions to this edited volume have looked at the politics of contested knowledge as manifested in the conceptualisation, design, development, implementation and governance of large dams and mega-hydraulic infrastructure projects in various parts of the world. The special issue has explored the following core questions: Which philosophies and claims on mega-hydraulic projects are encountered, and how are they shaped, validated, negotiated and contested in concrete contexts? Whose knowledge counts and whose knowledge is downplayed in water development conflict situations, and how have different epistemic communities and cultural-political identities shaped practices of design, planning and construction of dams and mega-hydraulic projects? The contributions have also scrutinised how these epistemic communities interactively shape norms, rules, beliefs and values about water problems and solutions, including notions of justice, citizenship and progress that are subsequently to become embedded in material artefacts.

Discover the hydrosocial cycle and the impact of power, knowledge, and scarcity on water rights and use through this engaging and student-friendly textbook In Water: A Critical Introduction, a team of distinguished researchers delivers an expert examination of our most pressing water-related challenges, arguing that flows of water are shaped by social practices and geometries of power. Combining first-hand research and headline case studies, the authors reveal the hydrosocial relations often hidden in mainstream accounts of water, delving into current issues like water scarcity, floods, global water governance, legal conflicts, human rights, potable water provision, health, the water-food-energy nexus, and much more. Spanning five centuries, this comprehensive volume reflects on how imperial expansion has shaped hydrosocial relations in and between Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, how water demand has changed over time, and how this change impacted lifestyle. As the first major text to synthesize critical water research in both local and global perspectives, this book is anchored by clear and compelling arguments — the "four planks" — and supported by the authors' original research and up-to-date synthesis of the latest critical research on major water problems. It also includes maps, illustrations, and additional learning materials to be used by educators. Readers will find: A lively and thorough introduction that explains why a critical approach is necessary to fully understand our current water challenges, with a focus on the "skeptical superhero" A global approach to key debates in water issues, including large dams, privatization, transboundary conflicts, agriculture and irrigation, water and sanitation provision, human rights, governance dilemmas, and the Sustainable Development Goals Comprehensive explorations of the roles played by expert knowledge, global capital, climate change, and justice struggles in the hydrosocial cycle Critical theoretical perspectives that integrate environmental social sciences, feminist critique, and a broadly defined political economy with the specificities of water resources Fulsome treatments of water governance, science, and management, including the origins and implications of neoliberal approaches to the privatization, commodification, and financialization of water An accessible text that "invites the reader" on a critical journey Water: A Critical Introduction is a key text for advanced high school, undergraduate, and graduate students who want a keener understanding of trends in environmental management, political ecology, and water governance, science, and engineering. Written with an interdisciplinary audience in mind, this book will benefit students taking courses in environmental studies, environmental law, geopolitics, international studies, human geography, hydrology, engineering, environmental economics, and related disciplines.

Water is essential for human life and at the centre of political, economic, and socio-cultural development. This Routledge Handbook of Water and Development offers a systematic, wide-ranging, and state-of-the-art guide to the diverse links between water and development across the globe. It is organized into four parts: Part I explores the most significant theories and approaches to the relationship between water and development. Part II consists of carefully selected in-depth case studies, revealing how water utilization and management are deeply intertwined with historical development paths and economic and socio-cultural structures. Part III analyses the role of governance in the management of water and development. Part IV covers the most urgent themes and issues pertaining to water and development in the contemporary world, ranging from climate change and water stress to agriculture and migration. The 32 chapters by leading experts are meant to stimulate researchers and students in a wide range of disciplines in the social and natural sciences, including Geography, Environmental Studies, Development Studies, and Political Science. The Handbook will also be of great value to policymakers and practitioners.

Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as a water engineer, negotiator, and commentator, Mark Zeitoun provides a unique insider's account of our complex relationship with water. He explains how un-checked assumptions about water mix with political and economic systems to create an insatiable and ruinous thirst for ever more water. He shows how we use water to lethal effect in wars, and demolish drinking-water systems with wanton disregard. He questions why we transform the most majestic of rivers into canals which spark international conflict and challenge our capacity for preventative diplomacy. The answers reflect more about our society than we might care to admit. If we are to restore water's inner grace, Zeitoun argues, we should worry not so much about 'saving' water, but about what we do with it when it's in our hands. Reflections draws upon the author's decades of experience teaching and communicating complex water issues, and replaces widely held myths with new concepts from around the globe. He brings attention to the dissonance between how we see and feel about water and what we do with it, calling upon readers to develop an informed ethos of water that reflects the restorative nature of this essential resource.

This book is the first collection of state-of-the-art research projects analyzing water conflict and cooperation with an explicitly theoretical point of view. Its fourteen chapters offer a comprehensive and up-to-date overview on how the application of various theoretical perspectives can support the work of scholars and practitioners in mitigating water conflict and developing cooperation. The volume starts out from a literature review on the theorization of transboundary waters in International Relations, which prepares the ground for the demonstration of the latest approaches of scholars currently working on this field. The discussion of their findings is divided into four main sections. The first section deals with reflections and critiques on the grand theories of International Relations, proposing new and more nuanced frameworks for understanding and managing transboundary water relations by going beyond the traditional assumptions. The second section focuses on the catalysts and barriers of cooperation, applying theoretical frameworks which reveal the consequences of the dynamics in power relations and institutional frameworks. The third section investigates into the perspectives at the intersections of theory and practice related to the most practical field within the scope of the volume: water diplomacy. The fourth section introduces new perspectives to provide specific entry points for understanding and managing water conflict and cooperation. Overall, the work intends to demonstrate that the theorization of transboundary waters can significantly contribute to the deeper understanding and the more efficient management of water conflicts and cooperation from several aspects. The authors come from diverse backgrounds, and their individual careers are often related to the intersections of theory and practice in the field of transboundary water management. Their expertise covers water issues from all around the globe, which is reflected in the range of the analyzed case studies. The diversity of the experts involved, their backgrounds, their perspectives, the applied theories, and the analyzed cases was an important priority for the editors.

What are the implications of climate change for twenty-first-century conflict and security? Rising temperatures, it is often said, will bring increased drought, more famine, heightened social vulnerability, and large-scale political and violent conflict; indeed, many claim that this future is already with us. Divided Environments, however, shows that this is mistaken. Focusing especially on the links between climate change, water and security, and drawing on detailed evidence from Israel-Palestine, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere, it shows both that mainstream environmental security narratives are misleading, and that the actual security implications of climate change are very different from how they are often imagined. Addressing themes as wide-ranging as the politics of droughts, the contradictions of capitalist development and the role of racism in environmental change, while simultaneously articulating an original 'international political ecology' approach to the study of socio-environmental conflicts, Divided Environments offers a new and important interpretation of our planetary future.