Conceptual Relations: Water, Ideology and Theoretical Subversion

This paper takes a critical view of dualistic visions of Culture and Nature, proposing a more holistic, processual model. Employing water ‘to think with’, it considers the multiple flows between social, cultural and ecological processes. It suggests that, by enabling an understanding of the fluid and dynamic relationships between these, the metaphorical use of water offers an integrated view of human-environmental relations. Applying this approach to ethnographic research in the UK and Australia, it explores water’s capacities to elucidate the social and cultural dimensions of what are often considered to be ‘ecological’ issues.

The analysis explores the ideological implications of a theoretical stance that, in acknowledging the co-mingling of social and ecological flows, suggests a relational ethic. There is a critical contrast between this relationality and a more dualistic view that, by separating human and ecological processes, permits the externalisation of the social and ecological costs of intensive development. This raises a question about the relationship between theory and ideology. To what extent is a dualistic vision of Culture and Nature a product of – and a necessary condition for – exploitative productivism? Is a more relational view intrinsically subversive to such aims? Relational theories assume that all species share the hydrocommons, while the privatisation of water relies on a dualistic and boundaried view. A conceptual reconciliation between Culture and Nature would therefore require a change in ideological direction. Though this would undoubtedly be embraced by some groups, it is likely to be deeply unwelcome to elites currently empowered by their ownership and control of water. The theoretical debate is thus also a political one, in which more fluid theories are regularly dammed.