ABOUT THIS BOOK

Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity. Andrea Ballestero shows how these ephemeral distinctions are made through four technolegal devices—formula, index, list and pact. She argues that what is at stake in these devices is not the making of a distinct future but what counts as the future in the first place. A Future History of Water is an ethnographically rich and conceptually charged journey into ant-filled water meters, fantastical water taxonomies, promises captured on slips of paper, and statistical maneuvers that dissolve the human of human rights. Ultimately, Ballestero demonstrates what happens when instead of trying to fix its meaning, we make water’s changing form the precondition of our analyses.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Andrea Ballestero is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Rice University and Director of The Ethnography Studio.

REVIEWS

"Through the brilliant selection of the devices to exhibit her ideas, the author invites readers to think deeply beyond courts or treaties establishing a human right to water and shows how many other factors also contribute to and shape this."

-- Gayathri D Naik LSE Review of Books

"[Ballestero's] insightful analysis convinces the reader that such apparently mundane technical devices are indeed wonderful in their capacities to compose the water worlds of the future."

-- Veronica Strang PoLAR

“Throughout her ethnography, Ballestero emphasizes the messiness and oftentimes mundane work it takes to make access to water a human right within capitalist society…. A Future History of Water showcases how everyday technolegal devices perform the essential work of creating a future in which water is accessible to all.”

-- Kelsey Kim Catalyst

“Ballestero’s elegant formulation allows for an anthropology of water not found elsewhere. It is an account attentive to both ethnographic detail and to the insight that anthropology can bring to larger debates over water’s value, management, and meaning. A Future History of Water should be on shelves of water scholars interested in the intersections of politics, economics, and the material relations of water. It will make an excellent contribution to courses at undergraduate and graduate levels in anthropology and critical social sciences.”

-- Jeremy J. Schmidt Anthropos

“A Future History of Water is an important contribution to the literature on urban infrastructure, water policy and the urbanisation of the global south, as well as to environmental anthropology. The book reveals how widespread global water policy is; the policy of water pipes, the functioning of local policy and the unforeseen consequences of economic reforms…. Through a careful choice of devices, the author encourages the reader to think globally about the human right to water and shows how many factors, outside of laws and treaties, still contribute to supporting and shaping the recognition of water as a human right.”

-- Simona Zupanc Anthropological Notebooks

“Dense and beautifully detailed, Ballestero’s story shows how government bureaucrats and regulators moved beyond the declarative to the actual performance of the exacting work that a commitment to rights demands. In the process, the book unravels a set of seemingly uncharismatic devices, such as the consumer price index. Ballestero makes these technical tools appear as exuberant microcosms of technopolitical craftiness, unexpected historical depth, and ethical future-making."

-- Andrea Muehlebach Public Works

“After many years of relative abandonment, the topic of water has flooded back into anthropology.... At the forefront of this renovated interest in the topic of water is Andrea Ballestero, and her excellent book A Future History of Water.”

-- Casey Walsh Luso-Brazilian Review

“Proportions and bifurcations play a central role in Andrea Ballestero’s mesmerizing and indispensable monograph on the practical futures of water governance.... Such is the virtue of this wondrous book :an ethnography of proportions that is disproportionately rewarding."

-- Alberto Corsin-Jimenez Allegra Lab

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1. Formula 36
2. Index 75
3. List 109
4. Pact 144
Conclusion 185
Notes 201
References 211
Index 225

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