Thinking relationally about water: review based on Linton's "What is water?

"
Author(s): ALEX LOFTUS
Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 177, No. 2 (June 2011), pp. 186-188
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of
British Geographers)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41238027
Accessed: 05-05-2017 00:16 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are
collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal

This content downloaded from 146.83.108.177 on Fri, 05 May 2017 00:16:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Geographical Journal, Vol. 177, No. 2, June 2011, pp. 186-188, doi: 10.11 1 1/j. 1475-4959.201 0.00395.x

Review essay

Thinking relationally about water: review based

on Union's What is water?

ALEX LOFTUS

Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX
E-mail: alex.loftus@rhul.ac.uk

This paper was accepted for publication in November 2010

publication of Jamie Linton's superb mono- ing of Chilean water markets. This work has continued
graph, What is water?, provides an opportunity to push the boundaries of theoretical developments in
to consider the development of relational and geography and, in the process, water has become a
dialectical thought within geography and especially crucial element through which abstract concepts have
how this has developed around the subject of water. been explored in the concrete [see Ekers and Loftus
Not only does Linton provide a particularly sensitive (2008) for a similar argument]. In short, as several
review of relational theory but he applies this in a others have claimed, water provides a wonderfully
nuanced and flexible way to the study of 'modern powerful lens through which the workings of different
water'. In so doing he shows both the power of such societies might be explored.
an approach, as well as providing an overview of In many ways Linton's book distils the best of such
some fascinating research by fellow geographers. work but Linton also manages to write a book of far
Geographical interest in theorising nature-society more general interest covering the meanings invested
relations through water extends back for many years. in water through the ages. His sense of water's history
Semple's (1911) deterministic Influences of geo- feels encyclopaedic in its range and one is struck by
graphic environment is replete with references to this from the very first lines. Here, he writes:
how water shapes history and includes a 10th chapter
on 'Man's relation to the water'. The theorisation of Water is what we make of it. This is not a particularly
the relationship between water and social power novel assertion. The philosopher and historian of religions
was of course also central to geographers' engage- Mircea El ade wrote that water 'is fons et origio, the
ments with Wittfogel's (1957) Oriental despotism. source of all possible existence ... it will always exist,
Aspects of such an approach were later to destroy the though never alone, for water is always germinative, con-
career of Owen Lattimore. More recently, cultural taining the potentiality of all forms in their unbroken
geographers have considered the importance of sym- unity'.
bolic aspects of water infrastructure (Cosgrove and Linton (2010, 3)
Petts 1990). Swyngedouw (2004) has turned Harvey's
dialectical approach to a nuanced understanding ofThe book continues in this vein drawing from Greek
the co-evolution of water and social power and theand Roman history before moving onto a more
transformation of 'local waters into global money'.detailed analysis of the history of the modern disci-
Bakker (2003) has dissected the deregulation andpline of hydrology. Through this/the meaning of water
re-regulation of water supplies in England and Wales, has become abstracted from the processes and rela-
before going on to look at broader questions of gov-tions of which it is a part. Linton's aim is to bring these
ernance and struggles over water around the globeback to light and to retell the history of this 'modern
(Bakker 2010). Kaika (2005) has sought to reconcep-abstraction'. Thus, after a review of contemporary
tualise the urban through the flows of water that approaches, Linton moves from premodern waters -
animate the built environment; and Page (2005) hasin which the qualities of different waters were appre-
explored water debates in a Cameroonian context, ciated, to modern water- in which the emphasis shifts
turning to neglected psychoanalytic aspects of waterfrom quality to quantity. In charting the rise of hydrol-
commoditisation as well as gendered aspects. In aogy and the Hortonian hydrologie cycle, the book
Latin American context, Budds (2009) has applied demonstrates the power of work in science and tech-
critical political ecological insights to an understand-nology studies, whilst also having much to say about

The Geographical Journal Vol. 1 77 No. 2, pp. 1 86-1 88, 201 1 201 1 The Author. The Geographical Journal 201 1 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)

This content downloaded from 146.83.108.177 on Fri, 05 May 2017 00:16:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Review essay: What is water? 1 87

recent work on the reception ofhegeographical considers an antipathy towards

knowl- mental conceptions
edge. Understanding the mutualofco-evolution the world, Linton then of appears to deny a role for
sci-
entific practices, ideas and water itself,
material practices withinLinton
his theoretical framework.
demonstrates how the discipline of Perhaps I misinterpret him
hydrology layshere,the
but I can't help but
foundations for 'modern' water. feel that Linton is following a longer tradition of cri-
At the heart of Linton's approach is a materialist
tiquing all historical form approaches
of for a sup-
'relational dialectics' outlined early posed base-superstructure
on in the model. work. Nevertheless, one
Linton summarises: 'dialectics sees the world as of the many achievements of dialectical thought
within geography and of relational thinking with
fundamentally constituted of process, relation, and
change' (p. 25). In developing this dialectical regard to water politics has been to undermine any
approach, the book bears many similarities with simplistic
the understandings of this metaphor (for one of
work of Swyngedouw whose spiralling diagram the finest transformations of this metaphor see Gram-
of the production of socio-nature is now well known sci's prison writings and his conception of the histori-
and is reproduced within (p. 38). For Swyngedouw cal bloc). Linton's castigation seems unfair in this
light. Thus, for Harvey, at least six moments can be
(1 999), water is constituted as a socio-natural hybrid
seen to shape the socio-natural world: relations of
that, in turn, shapes Spanish society in distinct ways.
Although this argument shares some ideas with production;
the social relations; ideas; everyday life; rela-
earlier Wittfogelian framework, it is stripped oftionsits with nature; and technology. In highlighting
environmental determinism. For Swyngedouw, nature these, Harvey could not be clearer that:
and society are read as different moments within a
co-evolving assemblage. Linton concurs and, in the No one moment prevails over the others even as there
process, provides an excellent overview of relational exists within each moment the possibility for autonomous
thinking in geography. This provides a far more development (nature independently mutates and evolves,
sophisticated understanding of dialectics than theas do ideas, social relations, forms of daily life, etc.). All
caricature that has sometimes emerged within theof these elements co-evolve and are subject to perpetual
discipline, leading those such as Whatmore to makerenewal and transformation as dynamic moments within
the bizarre claim that 'dialectics can be seen to raisethe totality . . . The danger for social theory is to see one
of the elements as determinant of all the others.
its binary logic to the level of a contradiction and
engine of history' (1999, 25). Similarly, for Hinchliffe, Harvey (2009, 29)
there is 'a tendency in dialectics to systematize, to
render relations as contradictions and to eventually
In no way can this be seen as a simple base-
pose nature and culture as pure ontological catego-superstructure model. Ultimately, Linton has accepted
ries that no one can reconcile' (2007, 51). (Both take
the common caricature of marxism and his analysis is
their cue from Latour here, of whom more will be because of it.
weaker
written later). Linton's sensitive review, as well as his
This is, of course, a very minor criticism of what
excursions into the thought of AN Whitehead and remains a fabulous and wide-ranging text. This is a
other non-marxists, demonstrates the paucity of such
book written with an honesty that is uncommon.
readings. Nevertheless, Linton does not accept dia- There is something direct and heartfelt about the
lectical thinking uncritically; rather he sees problems
in the 'materialist' foundation on which much of this
examples brought into the concluding chapter when
Linton writes of social movements in Kingston to
socio-natural critique rests. Here, I think, he runs into
reclaim public waters through swimming together in
problems that are of wider relevance for geographi- Lake Ontario, or challenging the monopoly of bottled
cal thought. water companies on the Queen's University campus.
Having demonstrated that dialectical thought must The book is also path-breaking in its delineation of
necessarily includes ideas as well as material prac- what Linton (amongst others) terms 'the hydrosocial
tices, ideological frameworks as well as representa-
cycle'. Relating this to the hydrologie cycle, he writes
tional practices, Linton then appears to contradict that:
himself in writing that there is insufficient space
within materialist approaches to give due weight to
Like (modern) water itself, the hydrologie cycle seems so
ideas: these 'can hardly be described as metabolic'
obvious that it is normal to regard it as 'one of nature's
(2010, 39). He then concludes his theoretical over-
grand plans' or 'a great natural system/ But as natural-
view by stating that his approach 'draws from David
(ized) as it has become, the hydrologie cycle nevertheless
Harvey's formulation of relational dialectics and Erik
internalizes a human story ... I present the hydrologie
Swyngedouw's incorporation of hybridity into a
dialectical-material framework. However, instead of cycle as something that takes shape where the water
process meets with the practice of scientific hydrology.
setting on a materialist foundation the process by
I therefore treat the hydrologie cycle as a hydrosocial
which nature and history are produced, I argue that it
phenomenon.
rests on no particular foundation at all (p. 41). The
claim is a peculiar one; for in his efforts to rectify what Linton (2010, 106-7)

201 1 The Author. The Geographical Journal 201 1 Royal Geographical Society The Geographical Journal Vol. 1 77 No. 2, pp. 1 86-1 88, 201 1
(with the Institute of British Geographers)

This content downloaded from 146.83.108.177 on Fri, 05 May 2017 00:16:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 1 88 Review essay: What is water?

Although others (see Swyngedouw 2009; Bakker

of transformative politics that rema
2010) have written on this, Linton, andbook,
Linton's Budds have
although more recent
done the most to delineate the engagements
meanings behind
in the the
politics of 'things'
term. The stimulating sessionsproductive.
organised at recent
It is this transformative vi
meetings of the Association of American Geographers
Linton's book such a warming read. It
(AAG) have been one step in a
taking thisthere
hope that analysis
are better ways of
further and understanding more another and to
of this 'human our non-human o
story'
internalised within water. When message
done best,
to this
take work
forward in our relati
builds on the kind of philosophyto
ofthe geographical.
internal relations
presented by Linton and extends it in new directions.
In the course of developing this, Linton seeks to
understand what he terms the 'crisis of modern water'.
References
For me, alarm bells ring on reading this: it appears
dangerously close to the apocalyptic
Bakker statements on
J 2003 An uncooperative commodity
water scarcity and resource wars that pervade
in England the
and Wales Oxford University Pre
popular press. Even as I write this, the
Bakker BBC has Privatizing
J 2010 picked water: governan
up on an article from Nature in which it reports
world's 'Water
urban water crisis Cornell University
map shows billions at risk of "water
Buddsinsecurity7". But H2O: science, poli
J 2009 Contested
Linton's emphasis is entirely different. The idea
water resources of a
management in Chile Geof
global water crisis, Linton writes, 'emerged
Castre N 2002 mainly
False antitheses: Marxism,
from the pens of American writers' (p. 192).
networks This idea
Antipode 34 1 1 1^6
is inevitable 'whenever the quantification
Cosgrove D and of Petts
abstract
G 1 990 Water, enginee
water is brought into relation with
Bel the quantification
haven Press, London
of abstract people' (p. 210). However, as
de Laet M and Linton
Mol A 2000 The Zimbabwe bu
shows, this represents a consistent error
ics for it
of a fluid fails to Social Studies of S
technology
recognise the myriad ways in which
Ekerspeople
M andcan relate
Loftus A 2008 The power of
to one another. This is one of the signal between
dialogues messages in
Gramsci and Foucault E
Harvey's (1974) now classic paper 'Population,
Planning D: Society and Space 26 698-71 8
resources and the ideology of science'.
Harvey D Linton takes
1974 Population, resources and
the proposition forward to document the writings
science Economic Geography 50 256-77
(from Peter Gleick and Sandra Postel
Harveyamongst others)
D 2009 On the deep relevance of a c
that have scripted the global waterMarx's
crisis.Capital
It is here
Humanthat
Geography 1 226-31
his claim that we face not a water crisis but
Hinchliffe a crisis
S 2007 of
Geographies of nature: s
modern water becomes clearer. ments,The principles on London
ecologies Sage,
which the Modern Constitution Kaikarest (and
M 2005here
CityLinton
of flows: modernity, na
follows Latour) are based on a rigid, yet implausible
Routledge, New York
and impossible, separation of nature and
Linton society.
J 201 0 What With
is water? The history of a m
the proliferation of socio-natural hybrids,
Universitythe basis for
of British Columbia Press, Vancou
this constitution is undermined. Page 2005 Raying for water and the geograp
It is characteristic of Linton's catholic approach
Transactions that
of the Institute of British Ge
he sees no rigid distinctions between
306 the relational
dialectics he develops earlier and
Semplethe actor
E C 1911 network
Influences of geographic environment Con-
theory (ANT) he draws on here.stable,And yet the muted
London
standoff between these two approaches dominated
Swyngedouw E 1999 Modernity and hybridity: nature, regenera-
geographical work on socio-natures in and
cionismo, the early of
the production years
the Spanish waterscape,
of the new millennium. Although 1 890-1Castre (2002)
930 Annals of the Association has
of American Geogra-
sought to reconcile what he considers
phers 89 443-65 to be false
antitheses between the two approaches, theof power
Swyngedouw E 2004 Flows wounds - the political ecology of
from earlier tussles remain. Personally, I would
water and urbanisation have
in Ecuador Oxford University Press,
liked more on this debate within Oxford
the book, although it
is perhaps wise of Linton to ignore
Swyngedouw it.E 2009
ANT-inspired
The political economy and political
studies of water have, perhaps surprisingly, been
ecology of the hydro-social rela-
cycle Journal of Contemporary
tively few and far-between [although
Water Research de Laet
& Education and
142 56-60
Mol's (2000) study of the Zimbabawe bush
Whatmore S 1999 Hybrid pump
geographies: rethinking the human in
has become something of a classic]: contemporary
human geography in Massey D, Allen J and Sarre P eds
geographical work on water has Human
thusgeography
been today
dominated
Polity Press, Cambridge 24-39
by dialectical approaches. I remain
Wittfogel Aagnostic as to
1 957 Oriental despotism: a comparative study of
whether ANT can really provide the tools
total power Yalefor thePress,
University kindNew Haven

The Geographical Journal Vol. 1 77 No. 2, pp. 1 86-1 88, 201 1 201 1 The Author. The Geographical Journal 201 1 Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers)

This content downloaded from 146.83.108.177 on Fri, 05 May 2017 00:16:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms