Social Power and the Urbanization of Water

2004 Political Science

Author : Erik Swyngedouw
Release : 2004
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 916/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Social Power and the Urbanization of Water by : Erik Swyngedouw

Download or read book Social Power and the Urbanization of Water written by Erik Swyngedouw. This book was released on 2004. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social power and the Urbanization of Water takes the circulation of water as a lense through which to analyse how the natural and social fuse together in the process of urbanization. In addition, excavating the circulation of water provides a vehicle to examine the relations between social, political, and economic power which give structure to the urbanization process. These power relations become embodied in and expressed by the particular forms through which water becomes urban. This analysis, in turn, allows light to be cast on who controls the transformation and appropriation of nature and the citiy's environment. The city of Quayaquil in Ecuador, where 600,000 people lack easy access to potable water, provides the empirical background for this analysis. Historical political-ecological research is combined with an analysis of key contemporary power brokers who organize a highly uneven and deeply unjust urban water circulation system. --COVER.

Social Power and the Urbanization of Water

2004-03-11 Science

Author : Erik Swyngedouw
Release : 2004-03-11
Genre : Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 799/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Social Power and the Urbanization of Water by : Erik Swyngedouw

Download or read book Social Power and the Urbanization of Water written by Erik Swyngedouw. This book was released on 2004-03-11. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking as his case-study the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, where 600,000 people lack easy access to potable water, Erik Swyngedouw aims to reconstruct, theoretically and empirically, the political, social, and economic conduits through which water flows, and to identify how power relations infuse the metabolic transformation of water as it becomes urban. These flows of water which are simultaneously physical and social carry in their currents the embodiment of myriad social struggles and conflicts. The excavation of these flows narrates stories about the city's structure and development. Yet these flows also carry the potential for an improved, more just, and more equitable right to the city and its water. The flows of power that are captured by urban water circulation also suggest that the question of urban sustainability is not just about achieving sound ecological and environmental conditions, but first and foremost about a social struggle for access and control; a struggle not just for the right to water, but for the right to the city itself.

The Power of Urban Water

2020-05-05 History

Author : Chiarenza Nicola
Release : 2020-05-05
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 648/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Power of Urban Water by : Chiarenza Nicola

Download or read book The Power of Urban Water written by Chiarenza Nicola. This book was released on 2020-05-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water is a global resource for modern societies - and water was a global resource for pre-modern societies. The many different water systems serving processes of urbanisation and urban life in ancient times and the Middle Ages have hardly been researched until now. The numerous contributions to this volume pose questions such as what the basic cultural significance of water was, the power of water, in the town and for the town, from different points of view. Symbolic, aesthetic, and cult aspects are taken up, as is the role of water in politics, society, and economy, in daily life, but also in processes of urban planning or in urban neighbourhoods. Not least, the dangers of polluted water or of flooding presented a challenge to urban society. The contributions in this volume draw attention to the complex, manifold relations between water and human beings. This collection presents the results of an international conference in Kiel in 2018. It is directed towards both scholars in ancient and mediaeval studies and all those interested in the diversity of water systems in urban space in ancient and mediaeval times.

Liquid Power

2023-08-15 Political Science

Author : Erik Swyngedouw
Release : 2023-08-15
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 968/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Liquid Power by : Erik Swyngedouw

Download or read book Liquid Power written by Erik Swyngedouw. This book was released on 2023-08-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the central role of water politics and engineering in Spain's modernization, illustrating water's part in forging, maintaining, and transforming social power. In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. In 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as El Disastre. Turning inward, the nation embarked on “regeneration” and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first—through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy—Spain's waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain's diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. After laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain's political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime—which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, Liquid Power illuminates the political nature of nature.

Urban Water Trajectories

2016-10-22 Political Science

Author : Sarah Bell
Release : 2016-10-22
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 869/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Urban Water Trajectories by : Sarah Bell

Download or read book Urban Water Trajectories written by Sarah Bell. This book was released on 2016-10-22. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water is an essential element in the future of cities. It shapes cities’ locations, form, ecology, prosperity and health. The changing nature of urbanisation, climate change, water scarcity, environmental values, globalisation and social justice mean that the models of provision of water services and infrastructure that have dominated for the past two centuries are increasingly infeasible. Conventional arrangements for understanding and managing water in cities are being subverted by a range of natural, technological, political, economic and social changes. The prognosis for water in cities remains unclear, and multiple visions and discourses are emerging to fill the space left by the certainty of nineteenth century urban water planning and engineering. This book documents a sample of those different trajectories, in terms of water transformations, option, services and politics. Water is a key element shaping urban form, economies and lifestyles, part of the ongoing transformation of cities. Cities are faced with a range of technical and policy options for future water systems. Water is an essential urban service, but models of provision remain highly contested with different visions for ownership of infrastructure, the scale of provision, and the level of service demanded by users. Water is a contentious political issue in the future of cities, serving different urban interests as power and water seem to flow in the same direction. Cities in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and South America provide case studies and emerging water challenges and responses. Comparison across different contexts demonstrates how the particular and the universal intersect in complex ways to generate new trajectories for urban water.

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