The power of water: developing dialogues between Foucault and Gramsci

This paper develops an exchange between two important strands of research within contemporary human geography. One concerns the matter of socionatures; the other concerns the operation and establishment of power within liberal, capitalist social formations. Through mobilising some of the recent writings on the political ecology of water, we seek to show how an engagement with Gramscian and Foucauldian work on power could be mutually beneficial for both areas of research. In so doing, we seek to mobilise some of the tensions, as well as the points of engagement, between Gramscian and Foucauldian approaches. Through opening up the ways in which water contributes to the survival of liberal capitalist formations and also to the production of distinctive subjectivities, this dialogue provides new inroads into the politics and praxis of everyday life.