The Politics Of Urban Water PDF Download

Research in the past two decades or so has questioned the sustainability of conventional approaches to urban water management. It has been suggested that a clear vision of the future is one of the key elements necessary for socio-physical change to instigate different ways of managing urban water. Somewhat surprisingly there has been little research on how visions are developed, politicised and, importantly, operationalised. Using Water Sensitive City and Urban Political Ecology as conceptual approaches, this thesis examines the way dominant visions of urban water management emerge and are used to justify certain ways of managing urban water. Archival and observational analyses are supported by interviews with key urban water practitioners in the case study city of Denpasar in Bali, Indonesia. It is an interesting case because the city has experienced huge political pressure to manage wastewater in a new way. The thesis is about the interpretation and materialisation of the socio-physical system guided by the vision. The wastewater system that is being constructed acts to separate water services based on race, social class and economic status. A centralised system is associated with wealthier populations and formal systems and institutions. It is considered a permanent solution underpinned by notions of modernity realised through technology. In contrast, a decentralised system is linked to underprivileged people and informal governance structures. This system is perceived as a community managed approach that is a temporary solution using “appropriate technology”. What is interesting is that recent literature suggests that the latter, decentralised approach is necessary to build resilient and more sustainable communities. This is in stark contrast to the discourse and imagined role of the decentralised infrastructure by all policy documents and stakeholders that were interviewed. Indeed, it was not something that the author had considered until engaging with the literature as part of the thesis. Overall, the thesis concludes visions are never neutral and reflect particular worldviews, ideological aspects and political agendas. Visions are used to legitimate certain agendas by particular groups through construction of certain narratives, irrespective of their underpinning principles.