The Hydrosocial Cycle: Understanding Water as a Socionatural Production
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The Hydrosocial Cycle: Understanding Water as a Socionatural Production Rubén Alejandro Villar-Navascués and Ana Arahuetes Interuniversity Institute of Geography, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain
Definition The lack of attention to the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of water conflicts and water policies has led to the production of the hydrosocial cycle framework since the beginning of the new century (Bakker 2002; Budds 2008; Linton 2010; Swyngedouw 2004, 2009). This concept understands water as a socionatural hybrid formed as a result of the interrelationships between water flows and social, economic, political, and cultural processes. Linton and Budds (2014) define the hydrosocial cycle as a socionatural process by which water and society influence and transform each other along different spatial and temporal scales. As a result, water cannot be managed solely from technical and quantitative perspectives, since the environmental problems surrounding this resource are fundamentally social and political issues. Understanding water beyond its biophysical characteristics, such as its chemical composition (H2O), quality, and quantity, implies becoming
aware of how its circulation is influenced by society through hydraulic infrastructures, legislation, cultural practices, and symbolic meanings (Budds and Hinojosa 2012). The aim of this concept is to try to overcome dualistic visions that separate water and society through a relational-dialectic approach that allows identifying how water, at the same time as it is produced by society, reconfigures social relations and highlights power relationships involved in this process (Linton and Budds 2014). In this way, it can be identified how the distribution and control of water resources in local contexts are influenced by processes of capital accumulation and unequal power relations produced at different scales (Swyngedouw 2004). Therefore, the hydrosocial cycle analysis provides a better understanding of how water flows shape and are shaped by institutions, practices, and human discourses that determine, in turn, ways of control, management, and decision-making (Linton and Budds 2014).
Introduction Water in a global context presents itself as one of the most important challenges of the future. The inequalities around the supply and sanitation of drinking water cause that 844 million of people lack basic water services; 2.1 billion do not even have safely managed drinking water; 4.5 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation; 892 million still practice open defecation; and only
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Clean Water and Sanitation, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70061-8_8-1
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The Hydrosocial Cycle: Understanding Water as a Socionatural Production
27% of the population in the least developed countries has access to soap and water for handwashing on premises (UN-Water 2018). According to the United Nations, water pollution is worsening, and lack o
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