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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Enclosing Water: Privatization, Commodification, And Access, Daniel Jaffee
Enclosing Water: Privatization, Commodification, And Access, Daniel Jaffee
Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations
This chapter examines the global political economy of access to drinking water, with particular attention to the implications for environmental and social justice. After reviewing theoretical approaches to the privatization and commodification of drinking water, the chapter examines the institutional and ideological drivers, dynamics, and effects of the enclosure of municipal (tap) water supplies, and the substantial countermovements it has generated, drawing on case studies from both the global South and the North. The chapter briefly reviews the present status of municipal water privatization, and then turns to another major modality of water commodification: bottled water. It explores the dramatic …
A More Perfect Commodity: Bottled Water, Global Accumulation, And Local Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman
A More Perfect Commodity: Bottled Water, Global Accumulation, And Local Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman
Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Bottled water sits at the intersection of debates regarding the social and environmental effects of the commodification of nature and the ways neoliberal globalization alters the provision of public services. Utilizing Polanyi's concept of fictitious commodities and Harvey's work on accumulation by dispossession, this article traces bottled water's transformation from elite niche item to a product consumed by three fourths of U.S. households. Drawing on ethnographic research with participants in two cases of proposed spring water extraction from rural communities by industry leader Nestlé Waters, we make two principal arguments. First, the case of bottled water necessitates a reevaluation of …
A Bottle Half Empty: Bottled Water, Commodification, And Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman
A Bottle Half Empty: Bottled Water, Commodification, And Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman
Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Bottled water has rapidly been transformed from an elite niche market into a ubiquitous consumer object. Yet the literature on drinking water privatization has largely neglected the growth of bottled water and its emergence as a global commodity. This article draws on Harvey’s analytic of accumulation by dispossession to explore how commodification unfolds differently across multiple forms of water. Based on ethnographic interviews with participants in two conflicts over spring water extraction in rural U.S. communities by the industry leader Nestlé, we make three arguments. First, contestation over bottled water commodification is refracted through competing framings regarding control over local …