the power of water developing dialogues between foucault

1 IntroductionFor numerous scholars, an empirical focus on water has served to revitalise historicalgeographical materialism, providing new insights into produced environments, unevendevelopment, and the politics of urban metabolisms. However, no one to date hasdeployed a Gramscian framework to understand urban water provision, and, withseveral exceptions (Gandy, 2006a; 2006b; Joyce, 2003; Osborne, 1996), little considera-tion has been given to the purchase that a Foucauldian approach would bring to ourunderstanding of water politics. Accordingly, this paper examines whether our under-standing of the politics of urban water provision can be pushed forward through adirect engagement with the work of Gramsci and Foucault. More explicitly, can weunderstand everyday relations to water as being imbricated in the operation of hegem-ony and in the maintenance of subtle forms of rule? When competing groups struggleover the merits of various means of water provision, they might also be understood tobe struggling over the shape of a future societyone in which the exchange relation isdominant, or one in which use and need are privileged over profit. However, whenpeople routinely turn on a tap are they also positioned within a myriad of relations andtechniques of power that bind them to the survival of capitalism? This paper seeks todevelop a theoretical framework through which future research can approach thesequestions. In short, we want to lay some modest foundations for a future researchagenda. In order to do this, we enter into a second fount of theoretical debatethereconcilability or irreconcilability of the work of Gramsci and Foucault.

In recent years, this second debate has been taken up within the geographicalliterature through work on neoliberalisms. Here, Gramscian approaches have beenbrought into conversation with Foucauldian approaches in ways that, whilst productivefor some (Larner, 2000; 2003; Peet, 2001; Sparke, 2006; Watts, 2003) others have arguedto be na| ve, theoretically clumsy, and politically confused (Barnett, 2005). Whilst this

The power of water: developing dialogues between Foucaultand Gramsci

Michael EkersOxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, England;e-mail: [email protected]

Alex LoftusDepartment of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, England;e-mail: [email protected] 2 July 2007; in revised form 5 November 2007

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2008, volume 26, pages 698 ^ 718

Abstract. This paper develops an exchange between two important strands of research withincontemporary human geography. One concerns the matter of socionatures; the other concerns theoperation and establishment of power within liberal, capitalist social formations. Through mobilisingsome of the recent writings on the political ecology of water, we seek to show how an engagementwith Gramscian and Foucauldian work on power could be mutually beneficial for both areas ofresearch. 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 watercontributes to the survival of liberal capitalist formations and also to the production of distinctivesubjectivities, this dialogue provides new inroads into the politics and praxis of everyday life.

doi:10.1068/d5907

Corresponding author.

debate is vital as a launchpad for some of the arguments taken forward in this paper,nowhere in the debate do we find a detailed discussion of the actual tensions andresonances within the work of these two important theorists. Instead, we see eitherthe adoption of a rarely questioned pluralism or an entrenchment of positions aroundan antipathy to either historical materialism or poststructuralism. By shifting theempirical discussion from one around neoliberalisms to one around the politicsand the practicalities of water provision, we argue that debates might discover amore productive terrain. This necessarily depends on much closer scrutiny of thework of both theorists. Hence, this paper serves two purposes: on the one hand, itseeks to push forward debates on urban water provision, and, on the other, it seeks toadd a degree of theoretical robustness to the ongoing debates concerning Gramsci andFoucault. By bringing these discourses together, we hope to bolster our understandingof capitalist urbanisation.

After a brief review of some of the more recent work by geographers on water andsocial power, we turn to a more detailed exploration of the potential contributions ofGramsci and Foucault. Here, we focus on where we see resonances between the two:around hegemony and governmentality as dispersed forms of rule, and in the impor-tance placed on interactions between everyday practices, the materiality of ideology,and power. We then go on to look at where we see significant tensions: in thequite different understandings of power, conceptions of the `social', and the natureof struggle. In spite of these tensions, and in spite of what was often a fiercely anti-Marxist stance on Foucault's part, we refuse to consign the two theorists to opposingcamps. Indeed, along with several others (Driver, 1985; Jessop, 2007; Marsden, 1999)we argue that differences do not necessarily prevent dialogue. Foucault's later work,although treading an utterly distinctive path, seemed to move in many of the directionsthat several historical materialist writers, including Gramsci, had also claimed. AsMouffe (1979) has argued, Gramsci approached many of the theoretical concerns thatwere to become central to Foucault's oeuvre. For both Jessop (2007) and Driver (1985),this leads to what, on the surface, appears an erroneous claim: the theoretician weassociate most with a certain microphysics of power was also a provocative genealogistof the state. Taking this forward in the final part of the paper, we show how researchon water might be enlivened by such debates. We do this by revisiting the existingliterature on water in light of our discussion of Gramsci and Foucault. In doing so, wedelineate the contours of a new research agenda concerning the politics of water. Here,we suggest that the existing work could be advanced through explicating the connec-tion between urban water provisions and both hegemonic projects and dispersed formsof rule. In addition, we suggest that attention needs to be paid to the practices andtechniques through which social transformations are enacted.

2 Water and social powerFor at least a century, geographers have been interested in the ways in which water,power, and politics are woven together. In the accounts of early environmental deter-minists, water plays a vital role in shaping the history of specific societies (Semple,1911).(1) Later, in somewhat more nuanced accounts, the interactions between socialand natural processes are seen to shape political fortunes. Here, one might think of thepossibilist critique of environmental determinism (Febvre, 1925) or, later, in geographers'(Peet, 1985) engagements with Wittfogel's (1957) Oriental Despotism or Worster's (1986)

(1) See chapter 1 entitled `` The operation of geographic factors in history''. The book is replete withreferences to the role of geography in shaping history and includes a tenth chapter on `` Man'srelation to the water''.

The power of water: developing dialogues between Foucault and Gramsci 699

Rivers of Empire. In more recent years, these relationships have been explored through areinvigorated historical geographical materialism(2) and through attempts to groundpolitical ecology much more firmly in a nuanced political economy.

With regard to the latter, Bakker's (2000; 2002; 2003, 2004; 2005) work has forced aquestioning of many of the simplistic assumptions in a political economy of the envi-ronment. The crude equation of water privatisation with deregulation is unsettledthrough her argument that, within England and Wales, deregulation of the water sectorwas accompanied by reregulation. Continually, Bakker's work urges us to rethink thepolitical economy within a nuanced left political ecology. At times, Bakker's (2007)work charts a separate course, as seen in her stress that attention be paid to how thereregulation of water is tied up with the reconfiguration of the citizen ^ consumernexus. Even if the conceptual resources she deploys to question the latter lack thesophistication with which she approaches political ecology, Bakker's work brings usto the cusp of explicitly considering how changes in urban water provision are tied tothe reconfiguration of social formations.

Others have found similarly productive insights in historicising the provision ofclean drinking water, showing how this, in turn, comes to play a constitutive role in therise of modernity. Gandy's wide-ranging work (1999; 2002; 2004a; 2004b, 2006a;2006b; 2006c) situates the provision of water within discourses of the organic and thesanitary city: water provision plays a key role in the rise of the Keynesian welfare stateand the `splintered urbanism' of Graham and Marvin's (2001) contemporary city. InConcrete and Clay, Gandy (2002) develops rich insights into the politics of the city,through looking at New York's expanding ecological frontier and the complexitiesof the city's metabolic processes. Swyngedouw (1997a; 1999; 2004a; 2007), in turn,develops sweeping historical geographies of both the Spanish and the Ecuadoreanwaterscapes. In the Spanish case, the waterscape is shown to be both a crucial actorin the development of a late-19th-century and early-20th-century regenerationist dis-course as well as a key actor in the scalar politics of Franco's fascist dictatorship. InKaika and Swyngedouw's (2000) work, water infrastructure is shown to embody andexpress the modernist triumph over nature, before, in more recent years, it becomes afetishised form of the Fordist social compromise. Kaika's (2003; 2004; 2005) writingsthen go on to suggest ways in which this fetish might be transformed in periods of crisisthat puncture the intimacies of the modern home. Both Gandy's and Swyngedouw'smore recent work has sought to delve into some of the tropes through which socio-natural relationships might be productively explored. For Gandy (2005; 2006a; 2006b),this has involved projects on cyborg urbanisation and, more recently, exploringthe purchase in bringing Foucauldian ideas together with Agamben's writing. ForSwyngedouw (1996; 2006), this has involved a more overtly historical materialistexploration of urban metabolisms and hybridity.

Implicit in much of this literature are several understandings of both power andthe exercise of power. In the rich empirical studies there is a clear appreciation ofhow power circulates through sociohydraulic landscapes in decentralised and taken-for-granted manners. In this respect, power is an effect of a myriad of relations, notsomething that can be held. Thus, in Swyngedouw's (2007) work, the coercive arm ofthe fascist state works in concert with a consensual power, evident in the material andsymbolic flows of power in the waterscape. For Gandy the corporal extension of thebody to the physical and symbolic infrastructure of the city decentres the humansubject and rearranges the micropolitical realms of power in private spaces (2005; 2006a).

(2) For discussions of the concept of historical geographical materialism see Harvey (1982; 1996;2003), Smith (1984), and Swyngedouw (2000).

700 M Ekers, A Loftus

However, within Swyngedouw's (2004a) and Gandy's (2006c) work there is also amore realist understanding of power at play. Power for both of these authorsis also something that can be held and deployed. For instance, the military elite ofLagos or the water vendors in Ecuador have the power to make water flow or notflow through cities. Crucially, both Swyngedouw and Gandy insist that power, in therealist sense, might be investigated through a historical geographical materialistanalysis. Whilst a choice between a more relational and a more realist understandingof power does not necessarily need to be made, a more direct theoretical engagementwith the notion of power could add another degree of sophistication to what isalready cutting-edge scholarship.

Taking Swyngedouw and Gandy as representative figures, we suggest there is adeveloping interest in exploring, on the one hand, how water figures in questions ofthe subject and power, and, on the other, how water contributes to the stabilisationof particular social formations. On the one hand, there is a gesturing towards anti-humanist Foucauldian concerns and, on the other, there is a gesturing towardsmore humanist Gramscian concerns. While, as we noted in the introduction, thethoughts of these twothe humanist and the antihumanist, the imprisoned leader ofthe Italian communist party and the anticommunist campaigner for reform of thepenal systemare not easily reconciled, they may provide conceptual tools throughwhich the water research agenda can be enlivened. Through exploring some of thetensions and through using one's thought as a way of prising open questions withinthe other's thought, productive insights might be possible.

3 The promise of Gramsci and Foucault?There has been a profusion of literature in recent years on neoliberalism and govern-mentality.Whilst much of this has sought inspiration within Foucault's later works andhis lectures at the College de France,(3) this has often been complemented by referencesto Gramsci. For Watts (2003) some of the work in this field (see Braun, 2000; Dean,1999) represents a particularly powerful means of bringing together resource struggleswith the ragged politics of struggle over particular spaces. In Peet's work (2001), aGramscian theorisation of hegemony is complemented by some of Foucault's writingson the power of discourse. And, for Larner (2000; 2003), some of the untidiness inthe establishment of neoliberalisms in different contexts might be explored through arapprochement of Gramsci and Foucault

Recently, however, Barnett (2005) has argued that the differences between `neo-marxist' approaches and Foucault are significant enough to warrant extreme caution indeveloping accounts inspired by both. In reference to recent geographical work onneoliberalism, analysed through a Gramscian ^ Foucauldian lens, Barnett suggests thatthis scholarship is at best theoretically clumsy and at worst simply na| ve. He statesthat marxist and Foucauldian approaches `` imply different models of the nature ofexplanatory concepts; different models of causality and determination; different modelsof social relations and agency; and different normative understandings of politicalpower'', adding that `` we should not finesse these differences away by presuming thatthe two approaches converge around a common real-world referent, so-called `neo-liberalism' '' (Barnett, 2005, page 8). Neglected here, Barnett argues, are the debatesaround Hall's (1978; 1984; 1988; Hall and Jacques, 1983) analyses of Thatcherism andthe cultural up-swell that led to the distinctiveness of `authoritarian populism'.

There is clearly much of value in Barnett's argument. It provides a wake-up call tolazy theorising and disturbs what appears to be an unproductive consensus around(3) For an excellent discussion of these courses, further contextualising Foucault's (2000a) muchcelebrated lecture titled `` Governmentality'', see Elden (2007a; 2007b) and Jessop (2007).


neoliberalism (see also Castree, 2006; Larner, 2003). Indeed, we would add to Barnett'sinventory of differences between Gramsci and Foucault their distinctive conceptions ofthe `social' and the prominence afforded to the role of struggle. However, from this, wedo not arrive at the same impasse as Barnett [we do not claim to be alone in this (seeDriver, 1985, Jessop, 2007; Marsden, 1999)]. Lingering in Barnett's account, we suspect,is something of a straw-Gramsci, characterised by economistic hubris, a misguidedconception of false consciousness, and a lingering humanist essentialism. WhereasBarnett appears to assign the two theorists to different camps, we, instead, seek toexplore what can be gained from an analysis that builds on elements of both Gramsci'swork and Foucault's work, whilst keeping the generative tensions between the twobodies of work explicit. Interestingly, and in contrast to Barnett's account, bothGramsci and Foucault were at pains to stress (albeit not explicitly) conceptual themesthat became central to the other's work. For Gramsci, the individual served as animportant level of political practice. To take just one example, in his assertion thateveryone is a legislator, Gramsci (1971, page 266) states that if an individual acceptsdirectives from others `` he makes certain that others are carrying them out too.'' Headds that, if an individual `` understood their spirit, he propagates them as thoughmaking them into rules specially applicable to limited and definite zones of living.''For Foucault, maintaining a vestige of the connection between the subject and broaderpolitical economic relations became a major consideration in his later work. This isindicated by numerous comments in Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality,Volume 1 stressing that the rise of industrial capitalism was not possible without theprofusion of new power relations that subjectivate people and populations in new anddistinct ways (Foucault, 1990, pages 114, 140 ^ 142; 1995, pages 164, 174 ^ 175; see alsoFontana and Bertani, 2003; Foucault, 2007, pages 48 ^ 49). Thus, in what follows, wedetail the resonances between Gramsci's conceptualisations of hegemony and ideology,and Foucault's discussion of governmentality and power. Following this, we concen-trate on some of the `productive tensions' between their work, through concentratingon their conception of the `social' and political struggle.

4 Resonances and tensionsGramsci's conceptualisation of hegemony is widely considered to be his preeminentcontribution to political theory. Transforming earlier conceptions, Gramsci's develop-ment of hegemony has two related facets. First, hegemony refers to the maintenance ofone social group's dominance over subordinate groups, accomplished through relationsof consent and coercion (Gramsci, 1971; pages 144; 148; 152; 155; 161; 169; 180).Maintaining hegemony over subordinate social groups raises the second dimensionof his conceptualisationthe necessity of reproducing the social relations that arefoundational to a given social formation [see Gramci's writings on A`mericanism andFordism' (1971, pages 277 ^ 316); see also Kipfer (2002)]. These two facets of hegemonyare achieved through active moral and intellectual leadership throughout the state ^civil society nexus. However, this should be thought of in explicitly material terms, andincludes both elevating the material basis of `society' and a material reworking ofideology (Gramsci, 1971, pages 60, 161; for discussion of this aspect of his work seeCox, 1981; Femia, 1981; Hall, 1988; Hall et al, 1977; Jessop, 1988; 1990; 1997; Mouffe,1979).

As many writers have noted (Jessop, 1982; 1990, Showstack-Sasoon, 1980; Simon, 1991),the state is absolutely crucial to Gramsci's understanding of hegemony. In a charac-teristically dialectical move, Gramsci shows the state to be both centralised and diffuse.Transforming the Hegelian distinction between state and civil society, Gramsci drawsour attention to the relations through which state and civil society are woven together.


In one of his clearest statements of the `proper' relation between state and civil society,he contrasts the situation in the East, in which the Bolsheviks had just succeeded inseizing state power, with the quite different situation in the West:In the East the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; inthe West, there was a proper relation between State and civil society, and when thestate trembled, a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The Statewas only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortressesand earthworks: more or less numerous from one state to the next, it goes withoutsayingbut this precisely necessitated an accurate reconnaissance of each individualcountry'' (1971, page 238).

Rather than relying on coercion as the sole means of consolidating rule, the rulingclass, operative throughout the integral state, works to develop acquiescence to its rulethrough the system of fortresses and earthworks lying behind [and sometimes in frontof (Gramsci, 1971, page 244)] the outer ditch of its own institutions. Thus, Gramsciurges us to think through the many ways in which power is consolidated in institutionsnormally considered outside of the state: in `` so called private initiatives'' (page 258);through intellectuals (pages 5 ^ 23); and through `` the Church, the trade unions, theschools, etc'' (footnote 56). We might add to this, and will do so more explicitly later,the provision of water services.

If Gramsci invites us to consider the role of the integral state as it reaches into theintimacies of the modern home and `private institutions', this has clear resonances withFoucault's concerns with governmentality as a form of dispersed rule. Whilst clearlyGramsci wanted to avoid reifying the state through constantly historicising its exis-tence, Foucault (2003, page 31) stressed that `` it is important not to, so to speak,deduce power by beginning at the centre and trying to see how far down it goes, orto what extent it is reproduced or renewed in the most atomistic elements of thesociety.'' Thus, Foucault's starting point was not the state, but rather the dispersedpractices and knowledges that constituted everyday forms of rule. In an ascendinganalysis, these constitute the state (2003, pages 27 ^ 31). For Foucault, these micro-practices are lost if political and social theory begins from the centre, assuming thesovereign power of the state: hence his repeated plea to `` cut off the head of the king''(1990, pages 88 ^ 89). Foucault's intervention is not to deny the existence of the state(although he does not take it as given), but, rather, an attempt to decentre it throughbeginning with the diverse set of relations that constitutes the basis of modern forms ofrule (for a discussion see Jessop, 2007).

For Foucault, then, government is understood famously as the c`onduct of conduct'.It refers to a field of action between heterogeneous relations of power and states ofoutright domination (Foucault, 2000a; 2000b; Hindness, 1996; Lemke, 2002). Asnumerous commentators have pointed out, acts of governing are intimately tied torationalities of government that provide a dominant logic which is repeatedly enactedand challenged: hence the term `governmentality' (Dean, 1999; Joyce, 2003; Lemke,2001; 2002; Rose, 1996). However, the relationality of the concept clearly runs deeperthan rationalities of government and includes material relations (Barry et al, 1996;Burchell, 1991; 1996; Elden, 2007a; Deleuze, 1988; Gordon, 1991; Lemke, 2001; 2002).In Foucault's (2000a; page 209) words: `` the things which in this sense government isto be concerned with are in fact men [sic], but men in their relations, and theirlinks, their imbrication with those things that are wealth, resources, means of sub-sistence.'' In this respect, government concerns shaping the conduct of individuals inaccordance with the pursuit of state strength internally and externally vis-a -vis otherstates, which necessarily involves the smooth functioning of economic processes(Burchell, 1991; Elden, 2007b; Foucault, 1981; 1990; 1995; 2000a; 2003).Whilst Foucault


was not explicitly concerned with the problematic of hegemonyand on the surfacemuch of his writing on governmentality is targeted at the consensus ^ coercion couplet(see Lemke, 2002)(4) he did acknowledge that relations of power and truth operatedwithin a broader form of social, cultural, and economic hegemony (Foucault, 2000c,page 133). Thus, Foucault's attempt to radically reframe how we think of governmentbypointing out the dispersion of governmental relations throughout the social bodymightbe seen to have antecedents in Gramsci's work on the integral state.

Understanding the form and function of the state has been crucial to much of therecent work in contextualising the relationship between water and power. However,understanding the state through the lens of Gramsci and Foucault necessitates a muchcloser analysis of the ways in which hegemony is established in the politics of everydaylife, or, in Foucault's words, through the cònduct of conduct', at specific moments andin specific places. While the tropes of hegemony and governmentality set the contextfor the arenas in which politics happens and what is at stake in political practicespecifically the dominance of one social group, the maintenance of social relations,and individual conductthey do not reveal how political power is exercised. To answerthis question we have to look at Gramsci's development of ideology and Foucault'sdiscussion of power.

For Gramsci the achievement of hegemony is accomplished through ideologicalpractices that shape individuals' beliefs and actions. Thus, in trying to understand thesupport for Mussolini (although Gramsci remains ambivalent as to whether or not thisis genuinely hegemonic), Gramsci found it necessary to get to grips with ideology as anactive force rather than as a veil of false consciousness. This active ideological forcerelies on a conscious attachment to certain core elements of a particular society. Ratherthan being cultivated through `sanctions' or còmpulsory obligations', hegemony impliesa far deeper attachment to a particular way of thinking and acting, what Gramsci(1971, page 242) describes as `` a new conformism from below''. Hall's (1978; 1984; Halland Jacques, 1983) extended analyses of Thatcherism in the 1980s capture this partic-ularly well, as he explores the paradoxically populist appeal of the authoritarian ruleestablished by Thatcher.

Lived practices are crucial to the material view of ideology adopted by Gramsci.Again, the particular `worldview' being established through the integral state is not aform of false consciousness adopted by an otherwise passive, oppressed people. On thispoint, we would argue, Barnett's critique (and his suggestion that the rapprochement ofGramscian and Foucauldian approaches leaves unanswered the question of how power`gets at' particular people), albeit fair on some of his victims, is not fair on Gramsci.Barnett seems to assume that marxist approaches necessarily imply a sense in whichpeople are duped, through ideologies that are always connected to the powerful.However, this overlooks important debates within marxism that stress the materialfunctioning of ideology, extending from Marx's writing on the fetishism of the com-modity (Marx, 1977) through Lukacsian approaches to reification (Lukacs, 1971), to theFrankfurt School (Marcuse, 1991) and more recent writings on the struggle againstfetishisation as process (Holloway, 2002). In our final discussion, we argue that theapparently banal act of collecting water is an important example of how material

(4) Lemke (2002, page 52) explains that, for Foucault, `` coercion and consensus are reformulatedas means of government among others; they are rather e`ffects' or ìnstruments' rather thanthe `foundation' or `source' of power relationships.'' It should be noted that Gramsci utilised theanalytics of consent and coercion to describe multiple social relations ranging from the influence ofone individual on another, to relations associated with religion, education, and policing. In addi-tion, Gramsci's treatment of consent and coercion did not exclusively revolve around organizingthe legitimacy of the sovereign or the state.


practices and ideas come to be interwoven. In Gramsci's terms, ideologies are formed`` through everyday experience illuminated by c`ommon sense' '' (Gramsci, 1971, page 199).Common sense refers to the sedimentedand at times contradictoryideologiesthrough which people act in the world. However, as with Marx (1974, pages421 ^ 423), this is a dialectic process: both reality and thought are shaped by sensuousactivitythe working, the playing, and the making of socionatures. In turn, the ideasshaped in this process have a material force of their own, serving to reshape realityin particular ways. Such a material reading of ideology need fall into neither acrude economism nor a crude discursive determinism. Rather, it is the socionaturalrelationshipswhich contain immanent cultural, symbolic, political, and economicrelationsthat are of the greatest importance for establishing dominant worldviewsat particular moments.

Foucault certainly had apprehensions about marxist versions of ideologymany ofwhich we would share (whilst noting that marxism is a terrain of debate and not a singularcanon(5)). First, he argued that the juxtaposition of ideology to some deeper truth missedhow `truth' always operated within discourses and practices, generating specific effects.This negates the neat categorisation of certain ideas and practices as true or untrue.Second, he was sceptical that ideology should `` stand in a secondary position relative tosomething that functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic determinant''(Foucault, 2000c, page 119). As can be discerned from our discussion of Gramsci'sdevelopment of ideology above, he certainly escapes many of Foucault's critiques. None-theless, we cannot avoid the fact that Foucault built his conceptualisation of power inopposition to `marxist' understandings of ideology, his principle target being Althusser's(1971) `` Ideology and ideological state apparatuses''.(6)

Contrasting his own with such work, Foucault (2000b) explained that one ofthe central concerns underlying his oeuvre remained the subject and techniquesof subjectivation; the development of his understanding of power was a means ofapproaching these questions. Moreover, through processes of subjectivation, diverseforms of government are actually enacted. Foucault (2000b, page 331) explains that`` there are two meanings of the word subject: subject to someone else by control anddependence, and tied to his [sic] own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Bothmeanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to.'' In thisrespect, power is a relational concept in that there is no autonomous subject; rather,subjects exist only in relation to other people, institutions, the state, the factory, and soon (2000a). Importantly, power `` is not something that can be divided between thosethat have it and hold on to it exclusively'' and those who do not (2003, page 29); it isdiffuse and circulates through the social body in a myriad of relations that are consid-ered to be productive. By productive, Foucault has in mind the making of subjects/bodies, truths, institutions, etc, all of which are part-and-parcel of his ascendinganalysis of the state. But how does power operate? Butler (1993, page 9) explains that`` there is no power that acts, but only a reiterated acting that is power in its persistenceand instability.'' In this respect, then, power refers to the continual repetition andchallenging of particular regulatory ideals and practices, which are mutually imbri-cated in each other. As Montag (1995, page 73) argues, for Foucault, `` knowledges arein no way exterior to power relations, caused by them only finally to transcend them;rather, they can only be understood as immanent in the materiality of practices andapparatuses.''

(5) It is almost a cliche, but worth remembering, that, up until his death, Marx himself steadfastlyrefused to be labelled a `Marxist'.(6) For a brilliant discussion of the similarities and differences between Foucault's Discipline andPunish and Althusser's ``Ideology and ideological state apparatus'', see Montag (1995).


Towards the end of the 1970s Foucault's project begins to change, and the conceptof biopower enters into his conceptual repertoire. Up until this period, Foucaultwas concerned with the application of disciplinary technologies at the level of the indivi-dual and the body (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982; Foucault, 1995). Both biopower andgovernmentality arise in Foucault's theorisations as a complement to individualisingtechniques, in order to address relations of power which take the population as theprinciple target of regulation (Foucault, 1990; 2003). Lazzarato (2004) suggests thatbiopower holds a special place in Foucault's conceptual repertoire, insofar as thedistinction between the polis and bios is deliberately dismantled thus giving rise to anew ontology. In this new political ecological ontology, making life in certain formsbecomes the operating principle. This involves the investment, administration, andcontrol of both life and the population more generally. What is at stake is an attemptto bring regularity and equilibrium to both lives in themselves and to the general socialorder (Elden, 2007a; Foucault, 1980; 2003; Hardt and Negri, 2000; Lazzarato, 2004).It is important to stress that, in The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, Foucault (1990,page 171) was at pains to maintain that `` biopower was without question an indispens-able element in the development of capitalism''. He added that not only did capitalismneed the proliferation and controlled insertion of docile bodies, but also `` it had to havemethods of power capable of optimizing forces, aptitudes, and life in general without atthe same time making them more difficult to govern.'' Importantly, capitalism is notseen to be determining here; rather the practice of biopower becomes an importantelement in the development of capitalism; in Foucault's (1994, page 379, as quoted byFontana and Bertani, 2003, page 277) words: `` all these power relations do not ...emanate from a single source; it is the overall effect of a tangle of power relationsthat allows one class or group to dominate another.'' Thus, biopower is far fromreducible to capitalist political economy, but it is intimately related to its development.In a characteristic move, Foucault shifts our attention to the practices.

Here we encounter once again what is, potentially, one of the principal points ofconnection between Foucault and Gramsci. Both have a deep appreciation for howideas and types of knowledge are immanent within the materiality of practices andapparatuses. Thus, Gramsci and Foucault can provide us with an appreciation of howspecific rationalities of government and ideologies are internalised within hospitals,cities, and, for our own purposes, produced waterscapes. Moreover, from a Foucauldianperspective, this entails managing the conduct of people and their relations with thematerial world, customs, beliefs, and ways of acting and thinking. From a Gramscianperspective, water infrastructure can be considered part of the hegemonic apparatusthrough which forms of c`ommon sense', in support of a specific group's interests, cometo be constituted.

Overall, whilst Foucault and Gramsci deploy different conceptualisations of powerin their work, in both cases power circulates throughout the socionatural fabric. ForFoucault, this is clearly an explicit part of his work, which cannot be said to be true forGramsci. A circulatory understanding of power is, however, implicit within Gramsci'soeuvre. As Eagleton (1991, page 116) notes, Gramsci tries to understand how `` power isto remain conveniently invisible, disseminated throughout the texture of social life andthus `naturalized' as custom, habit, spontaneous practice.'' Even if Eagleton highlightsthe circulatory nature of power, his comment also indicates that there is somethingostensibly real about power that can be wilfully deployed and achieved. It is on thispoint that Foucault's assertions to the contrary come to mind and we glean a differ-ence in the two theorists' conceptualisations. The point of convergence is that boththeorists insist on the historical specificity of the operation of power, as can be seen in


Foucault's detailed genealogical studies and Gramsci's close examinations of historicalconjunctures.

As the above review begins to open up, while certain parts of Gramsci's andFoucault's work resonate with one another, there are significant tensions that shouldnot be overlooked. On the surface there are manyFoucault's vehement anticommun-ism differs so markedly from many of Gramsci's theorisations of the new role of theparty, for example. However, beyond these somewhat superficial differences, we dis-cover more significant tensions. Nevertheless, rather than seeing these tensions asdebilitating, perhaps they can be used productively, as points of departure for newareas of research. Rather than a closed analytical model, such tensions might priseopen new terrains for engaged praxis.

One of the principle differences between the approaches lies in how one conceivesof the `social' (see Hennessy, 1993; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Gramsci's dialecticalapproach suggests an understanding of the social that is internally related and deter-mining, which means various economic, political, and cultural relations come to affectone another whilst congealing as a differentiated whole (1971, page 400; see also Hall,1980). In contrast, the advocates of poststructuralism such as Deleuze (1988) celebrateFoucault's conception of the social as discontinuous and fragmented, meaning thatspecific relations and knowledges are highly independent of one another and thereforenot mutually constitutive. Moreover, Foucauldian approaches stress the manner inwhich notions such as `the social' or `society' can be dangerous abstractions: they elidethe specificities of subjugated practices (Burchell, 1991; Foucault, 2003). Nonetheless,as we began to see above, lurking in the background of Foucault's insistence on thediscontinuous nature of the social and his genealogical methodology (Foucault, 1998a;1998b) is an acknowledgment of the way in which dispersed techniques of power areconnected to such things as the rise of industrial capitalism (Foucault, 1990; 1995) andstate strength (Foucault, 1981; 2003). As Foucault (2003, page 24) reflected in SocietyMust Be Defended: `` in a society such as oursor in any society, come to thatmultiple relations of power traverse, characterize, and constitute the social body.''Additionally, as Jessop (2007) writes, Foucault `` showed how the economy and thestate were increasingly organised in conformity with key features of capitalist politicaleconomy without ever being reducible thereto and without these features in turn beingfully pre-given.'' This hanging on to a relational understanding of the social is indica-tive of Balibar's (1992, page 42) claim that ``the whole of Foucault's work can beviewed in terms of a genuine struggle with Marx'', and his assertion that Foucault isthe most marxist when he is not talking about Marx.

In a slightly different vein, whilst some see this vestige of a relational ontology asa blight in Foucault's otherwise brilliant genealogical approach (see, for example,Donnelly, 1992), we see this as an important bridging point between Foucault andGramsci. If the relational dimension of Foucault's work is developed, we can gainan appreciation for the connections between techniques of subjection and broaderhegemonic projects. In many ways, this seems to be the direction in which Foucaultwas moving in his later lectures and writings. In relation to produced waterscapesand everyday interactions with water, Foucault provides us with the resources andvocabulary for understanding how specific subjectivities are enacted and the `how'of government. Future research on the politics of water might be considerably invig-orated through greater attention to the enactment of liberal government in the dailyprocesses through which water is accessed. At the same time, it might provide aconcrete example of the contradictions of liberal government in a period of ongoingprimary accumulation.


How the social fabric is conceptualised has important consequences for howpolitics is conceived. If the social fabric is seen as fragmented and discontinuous, itbecomes difficult to conceptualise political struggles that are not trapped in the local.[At the same time, although focusing on the specificities of resistances, Foucault is alsoprone to some fairly sweeping generalisations about the nature of struggles as evi-denced in his threefold categorisation of centuries of struggle (see 2000b)]. In contrast,if various parts of the socionatural world are considered internally related, it becomespossible to envision political practice that brings together coalitions cutting acrossdifferent spatialities and positionalities. For Gramsci, politics revolves around struggle,something he considers to be socially constitutive. Generally, this has been taken tomean the class struggle, even though Gramsci's work was a move against economisticunderstandings of the social and within his work there is ample scope for exploringnationalist and religious contestations. Foucault, in contrast, is often considered toderogate the role of struggle (Driver, 1985). As Said (1986; see also Fraser, 1981)complained, Foucault's ``imagination of power is largely within rather than againstit''. For Driver (1985, page 443), however, the assumed derogation of struggle withinFoucault's work is more generally `` designed to undermine grand assertions of theprimacy and inevitability of the `struggle' of the proletariat, and to illuminate the wholepanoply of local and concrete struggles which surround our everyday lives.'' Onceagain, we might be able to use one body of thought to gain a different take on theother. Taking this dialogue forward through concrete, historical examples is the task wewould like to propose. As part of this agenda we hope to provide some suggestivestarting points in section 5.

5 Taking the dialogue forwardAt the outset, we asked whether everyday relations to water contribute to the main-tenance of hegemony and the continuance of subtle forms of rule. Gramsci andFoucault, we suggested, are particularly apt theorists for addressing this question. Inorder to illustrate this possibility, and outline the contours of a new research agenda,we now revisit themes discussed in section 1 of the paper. In so doing, we recast andreevaluate the literature on water and social power in light of our discussion ofGramsci and Foucault. We will argue that an engagement with these theorists simulta-neously broadens and specifies the analytic framework through which the relationshipbetween water and power is interpreted. In this regard, we focus on:. How struggles for legitimacy conducted through water infrastructure might bemore clearly specified through an engagement with a reworked conception ofhegemony.

. How this might be linked to a more explicit theorisation of the state in work onwater and social power. Here, we argue that state theory is a spectre (an elephantin the room?) that haunts much of the literature on water and social power. Andyet it is never stated with the precision that we might expect.

. Necessarily, the above points require far greater specificity as to how power isenacted. Here we focus on everyday hydraulic practices and their links to broaderquestions of power. Whilst much of the literature reviewed in section 2 has beenstrong on power it has been less clear on how this `works'.

. Finally, we return to the tensions between Gramscian and Foucauldian perspec-tives over the question of struggle and look at what additional light this shedson the literature on water struggles.

We conclude this section, first, with a set of methodological questions and, second, byemphasising the tremendous conceptual resources available here for theorising theurbanisation of capitalist hegemony.


One of the great contributions of recent scholarship on water and urbanity hasbeen to shift debates over water provision from a narrow technocratic ground to richpolitical and ecological terrains. As reviewed in section 2 of the paper, much of thisscholarship has demonstrated how water engineering is turned to as a means ofdeveloping the moral, cultural, and political legitimacy of certain forms of rule. Inthe focus on legitimacy, the literature develops concerns closely related to those ofGramsci and Foucault. There is an implicit understanding of hegemony at work,insofar as the literature demonstrates how superiority over subordinate groups isestablished and legitimised (see Gandy, 2002; Kaika, 2005; Swyngedouw, 2007). How-ever, this understanding remains implicit. For quite understandable reasonstheprimary aim of this work is to open up discussion of the socionatural in a nuanced,politicised mannerhegemony is not discussed in precise terms. Whilst developingvaluable new terrains of debate, this leaves key questions unanswered: without someunderstanding of the operation of hegemony, it is surprisingly difficult to move fromthe grand displays of power represented in large-scale engineering works to the moresubtle ways in which power works through everyday hydraulic practices. In contrast,through transforming Gramsci's understanding of hegemony from a social to a socio-natural concept, as recent contributions to Gramscian political ecologies have done(Ekers et al, 2008), we are able to develop an understanding of how the aforementionedstruggles for legitimacy are hegemonic struggles that might be waged within andthrough the waterscape. Alliances between and within specific groups are forged throughthe provision of water to certain areas, through billing procedures, and through subtleconsensus-building practices operating through the water network.

In order to bring to light the shift in the analytic perspective we are advancing, it isworthwhile revisiting Swyngedouw's (1997a; 1999; 2004a; 2007) pathbreaking work.Swyngedouw's (2007) insistence on the scalar dimensions of the Spanish waterscape,and the `networks of interest' that have regional, national, and international dimen-sions, indicates how flows of power operate in a multiscalar fashion. Legitimacy,however, remains anchored in governmental institutions. Power is largely a `thing'that certain groups have and others do not (Swyngedouw, 2004a), even if the posses-sion of power by certain groups is exercised in a circulatory way through a variety ofconduits. In this latter respect, power works to consolidate hegemony for particulargroups. This understanding of power approaches that of Gramsci. For Gramsci, theachievement of power, or, in other words, the taking of power, is the political task ofsubaltern groups (for examples, see notes on The Modern Prince, 1971, pages 125 ^ 205).Achieving hegemony through a long-term war of position is crucial in countering thesubversive operation of power through the integral state. If we shift our lens frompower as a thing that is held to power as productive, in the sense of materialising areiterated norm, then we must instead enquire into the production of specific subjectsand customs and beliefs. This generates questions around how the reengineering of thewaterscape affects the ways in which an individual enters into collective life. What arethe other ideologies that are displaced and merged in the process? And what are thecontradictions of this process? To draw on Foucault, and yet bring him into conversa-tion with Swyngedouw's (2007) work, what are the specific techniques of power thatFranco colonises in order to produce acquiescent subjects? For instance, is there areconfiguration of disciplinary techniques of power that individuate people and ofbiopolitical techniques that `` optimize forces, aptitudes and life in general'' (Foucault,1994, page 379, as quoted by Fontana and Bertani, 2003, page 277)? Answering thesequestions is difficult, but in order to do so we need to consider power as an effectof dispersed socionatural relations in addition to power, normatively understood, assomething that someone has. Doing so would arguably elucidate the specific techniques


of power through which Franco's hegemony is enacted or not. The key research issuethereby becomes establishing the connections between the specificities of power andbroader questions around hegemony.

In doing this, we argue that questions of the state may also be developed further. Ina strange paradox, although the legitimacy achieved through hydrosocial engineeringis a central focus of the literature on water and social power, the state is rarely discussed.This is in spite of nuanced and theoretically sophisticated discussions of state theoryin other aspects of several of the protagonists' work.(7) Engaging with the workof Gramsci and Foucault permits a considered discussion of the form and function ofthe state that fits surprisingly well with the work already conducted on water politics.Gramsci's two-headed conception of the integral stateseen to be both centralisedand dispersedsynergises well with the discussion of power developed above. Hisinsistence on analytics that begin from `below' permits an understanding of the statethat emanates from the taps, the pipes, and the plumbing, whilst documenting the linksbetween the subtle operation of state power and the workings of everyday life. Theattention to Foucault's paradoxically antistatist genealogies of the state (Driver, 1985;Jessop, 2007) might also serve as a fecund ground for developing an understanding ofstate practices, as opposed to centralised state powerexactly the kind of analysis thatwork on water and social power demands. At times, the literature on water treats the stateas if it is a real entity that facilitates and imposes changes in the water sector (see, forexample, Bakker, 2002; Bond, 2002; McDonald and Pape, 2002). Gramsci and Foucaultturn this conception on its head through detailing how the state is constantly reproducedout of changing water practices. Indeed, if a theorisation of the state is implicit in much ofthe literature, it is almost certainly a Poulantzean conception. As Jessop (2007) notes in arecent discussion, and as Driver (1985) noted earlier, Poulantzas provides a vital con-nection between a Foucauldian genealogy of the state and the sort of nuanced historicalmaterialist position possible from Gramsci's work. Once again, the waterscape provides asurprisingly rich terrain over which such a theorisation might be explored.

If Foucault's genealogies of the state begin from the sets of practices that arestabilised in specific moments, Gramsci similarly urges us to specify the materialways in which hegemony comes to be established. It is vital, therefore, to specifythe way in which power is enacted. Barnett's (2005) rhetorical trapas he states thatrecent work on neoliberalisms fails to specify how power `gets at' peopleneeds to beanswered through looking at the way in which this power is enacted at particularmoments through material practices. Our starting point in this might be Kaika's(2003; 2004; 2005) highly suggestive work in which she is able to move between overtexpressions of state power, in the form of large-scale dam projects, and the politics ofdomestic practices. It becomes clear that both water and the practices that are asso-ciated with water provision serve to distribute power through the capillaries of thewater network. By bringing Gramsci's theorisation of everyday practices together witha Foucauldian emphasis on knowledge, practices, and power, further nuanced under-standings of the day-to-day acts of provisioning a household with water or paying a billto a newly privatised water company might be made possible. Importantly, this impliesa movement between the infrastructural sites that have captured the attention of manyof the theorists of the contemporary waterscapefrom the iconographies of largedams to the vast interbasin transfers achieved under demagogic forms of ruleandsome of the more intimate practices within the home, within the government office,and so on. Just as Kipfer (2008) and others have sought to reassert the importanceof the everyday in Gramsci's work, we would seek a dialogue with Foucault over the

(7) Swyngedouw's (1997b; 2004b) work on `glocalisation' is a classic example here.


materialities and the practices of everyday waterscapes. We see indications of this typeof research in Kaika's reflections on how the (re)engineering of water associated withthe rise of modernity transformed gendered practices in the home.(8) The connectionsthat Kaika makes are more empirical and historical rather than theoretical. Thus,Gramsci and Foucault might provide the theoretical tools through which more directconnections might be made between the twin `scales' of research in Kaika's work.

It should be clear that, far from arguing that recent debates over water and socialpower exclude many of these concerns, the concerns which the literature already opensup might be reanimated by an explicit engagement with the Foucault ^Gramsci prob-lematic. Gandy's (2005; 2006a; 2006b; 2006c) work is another interesting case in point.In the first instance, Gandy uses the cyborg metaphor to understand the materialinterface between the body and the city: the cyborg permits us to consider the `` abstractand inter-subjective realm through which political and cultural ideas become constitutedor `fleshed out' in parallel with the concrete development of the city'' (2005, page 38).In making this argument, Gandy illustrates how discourses become articulated in theinfrastructure of the city and cyborg bodies. In this respect, we begin to see howpoweras a set of relations that subjectivates peopleis immanent to urban infra-structure. In the second instance, Gandy's (2006a; 2006b; 2006c) more recent worklooks at how a Foucauldian understanding of power allows us to understand theconstitution of the modern subject and everyday life in relation to the physical infra-structure of cities and discourses of hygiene and sanitation. This would seem to go to thecore of several of the substantive arguments we have sought to make in this paper.

It is worth considering what the political and analytical stakes in adopting thismore explicitly poststructural position might be. Gandy (2006b; 2006c) is well awareof the difficult political commitments that follow from some of the key premises ofFrench poststructualist thought, noting that it is a slippery slope from Foucault andDeleuze to the liberalism of Hayek. He adds that theoretical implications of bothFoucault and Deleuze remain vague in relation to the practical dilemmas of urbanRealpolitik at the scale of an entire city or metropolitan region. Perhaps there issomething to be gained in bringing Gramscian thought to these questions. In the lastsection, we saw how Gramsci provides a rejoinder to Foucault's (in spite of himself )totalising theory of power, critiqued by the likes of Said and Fraser. In particular,Gramsci never gave up hope in the possibility of transformative politics, poignantlycaptured in the oft-quoted phrase advocating for `` the pessimism of the intellect andoptimism of the will''. At times Foucault appears to give up on `` the optimism of thewill'', and hence Gandy is challenged to find the basis for a broad-based politicalproject within Foucault's work. As suggested in the previous section, Gramsci's insist-ence on the relational understanding of the social and the constitutive role of strugglemay provide a means for Gandy to advance his political claims. Grasmci's writings on`the Southern question' show a deep concern with how to forge common alliancesof interest between the Southern peasantry and the industrial proletariat of theNorth. This is also evident in Gramsci's repeated reflections on the city and the country:these examine the processes through which differences come to be articulated andwoven into a historic bloc. The need for a workable understanding of the public realmmight also be explored through Gramsci's writings. Indeed, his appreciation of how

(8) Similar connections between broad infrastructure projects, legitimacy, and the microgeographiesof the home are made in Kaika's writings on Athens. She explains that when the taps ran dry inAthens in the early 1990s this disrupted the autonomy of the modern home and revealed theconstellation of political, economic, and ecological relations through which tap water was pro-duced and consumed. The drying up of household water taps was used as a political leverage pointthrough which consent for tariff increases and dam projects was exacted.


hegemony is achieved through advancing the material basis of societyin addition tomore recent attempts at understanding how ideologies are embodied and expressedwithin urban infrastructurecould provide a firmer basis from which to advance claimsabout the need to develop a public realm in a city of fragmentation and difference(Gandy, 2006b; 2006c).

One final area in which we think research might be further enlivened is around thestrategic and tactical possibilities of political struggles. To date, much of the work onwater and social power has sought to prise open the panoply of struggles that do existaround water in daily life. Whilst gendered, `racial', and èthnic' struggles have beencrucial subjects of empirical investigations, so also have been class struggles. Politicaleconomic questions have never lost their salience within historical materialistapproachesstill perhaps dominant within work on water and power. The reasonsfor this are both obvious and yet important: in the vast majority of capitalist societies,the struggle for access to water remains one revolving around the ability of some to beable to pay and the inability of others. More recently, this struggle has been heightenedby the easing of restrictions on the ability of some to be able to profit, in monetaryterms, from the difficulties some encounter in accessing water. Water struggles areinevitably defined in class terms. Invariably, they cannot be extricated from capitalcirculation and a capitalist system of accumulation, so central to class positionality.If, however, to pick up on this insight, there is any tendency towards reductionism inhistorical geographical materialist approaches, perhaps it might be challenged throughFoucault's questioning of the primacy of `` the good old logic of còntradiction' ''(Foucault, 1980, page 164). Here, a more recent focus on how class, gender, and racialstruggles intersect and articulate with previous historical geographies is crucial. At thesame time, Foucault's frequently totalising view of power might be challenged throughthe concrete examples of revolts against techniques of power provided by work onwater politics (see, for example, Bond, 2004; Debbane and Keil, 2004; Desai, 2002;Loftus and Lumsden, 2008). Rather than derogating the role of struggle, therefore, anengagement with Foucault serves to prise struggles open still further. Indeed, we mightseek to unpick the many ways in which a water politics serves to universalisethroughits coverage of more and more peoplewhilst also individualising, as more and morehouseholds are isolated through their inability to pay. In different ways, both Laurie's(2005) and O'Reilly's (2006) work offers suggestive insights into these individualisingpractices and how such natural resource interventions serve to generate genderedsubjectivities. Struggles against and within these practices enliven both sets of research.

As this discussion has sought to illustrate, some of the most exciting researcharound urban water provision contains threads of research closely akin to the concernsthat preoccupied Gramsci and Foucault. We can see this in the discussions of thelegitimising role of water and the changing practices of everyday access to water.Bringing the new wave of literature on water and social power together with a theoreticalengagement with Gramsci and Foucault has the potential to fundamentally deepen ourunderstanding of the urbanisation of hegemony. Thus far, those debates that have soughtto urbanise Gramsci in productive ways have been theoretical in orientation. This bringsus to a final point concerning the fecundity of the recent literature on water. DeployingGramsci and Foucault in order to understand the empirical studies of the sociopolitical êconomic aspects of water provides a concrete means of exploring the enactment ofurban hegemony and governmentalities. Perhaps the greatest obstacle in pursuing thistype of research is in navigating the tricky methodological terrain. Paying attention tobroad political, economic, cultural, and ecological relations and understanding howthese are articulated, expressed, and resisted in the ideologies and techniques of powerof everyday life is no easy task. Perhaps this begins to explain the historical orientation


to much of the research. It has often been more productive to contemplate the longueduree over which such relations have transformed than it has been to look outwardsfrom the present moment. Nonetheless, we think there are many reasons for under-taking this kind of research. There is the possibility that we bring into focus thecontradictory ideologies expressed in everyday customs and behaviours. Foucault(1981) urges us to consider the microtechniques of power that must be challenged aspart of a broader political project, something he was certainly not always averse toconsidering. In identifying the fragments of ideologies expressed in everyday practices,and in identifying peoples' challenges to techniques of powerboth disciplinary andbiopoliticalwe can see the contradictions of a hegemonic project. It is from withinthese contradictions and tensions that new societies might be envisioned and foughtfor. Indeed, such work can build upon the immanent critiques at work in people'severyday lives and everyday practices.

To sum up, what Gramsci and Foucault bring to the table is a set of conceptual andpolitical resources through which we can gather up the provocative threads of researchalready undertaken and take them forward through a nuanced analytical framework.Gramsci and Foucault ask us to build bridges between wider questions of legitimacyand hegemony and specific, subjectifying practices and techniques of power. Lastly, thetwo theorists pose difficult questions around what can be concluded from sites ofresistance to socially unjust changes in the water sector: we are forced, for example,to question whether struggles against water privatisation might be celebrated as apart of broader hegemonic stuggles or simply as revolts against disciplinary forms ofpower. This is more than a theoretical question, but Gramsci and Foucault force us tointerrogate the political conclusions we draw from these concrete struggles.

6 ConclusionsWhile this paper is situated at the intersection of two different debates, it is an attemptto push two different discussions forward through reciprocal synergies. A more directengagement with Gramsci and Foucault can potentially serve to explicate many of thecrucial insights that have largely remained implicit in the water literature thus far.Through revelling in both the tensions and the resonances between Gramsci andFoucault, we have tried to develop a research agenda around the quotidian ways inwhich water and politics are intertwined. We have sought to pose questions about thecomplicated relations between grand political economic considerations and the seem-ingly banal, taken-for-granted act of turning on a tap. On the other hand, we haveunashamedly used water as a heuristic device to explore and push forward debatesconcerning the relationship between Gramsci and Foucault. However, it is not enoughto state that the differences between Gramsci and Foucault represent productivetensions. Rather, these tensions must be made explicit, andwe would agree withBarnett (2005)not finessed away. In doing so, we hope to have steered clear of ana| ve pluralism while also remaining cognizant of the existing tensions and contra-dictions that are uncovered through bringing Gramsci and Foucault into conversationwith one another. The overall effect is to further our understanding of capitalisturbanisation, through illustrating how hegemony is exercised through techniques ofpower, imbricated in everyday relations with water.While other scholars have discussedissues of urbanism and hegemony (Jessop, 1997; Kipfer, 2002; 2008), we would insistthat more attention needs to be paid to the specific practices through which urbanhegemony may or may not be achieved. Thinking politically, Foucault urges us toconsider and challenge the micropolitics of things like urban water provision throughwhich people are subjectified in specific ways. However, drawing on a Gramscian


sensibility requires us to think about how these specific techniques of power areconnected to everyday practices and broader struggles for hegemony.

To conclude, working through the Gramsci ^Foucault problematic requires individualsto make epistemological, ontological, and normative commitments where and whenconflicts arise. The litmus test in terms of epistemological, ontological, and normativerelevance of a Gramscian or Foucauldian approach must surely be more than atheoretical exercise. Rather, it must depend on the ability of the framework to accountfor the untidiness and political struggles of everyday life. In this regard, much of thework being conducted on water provides both a theoretical environment through whichGramsci and Foucault might be brought into dialogue, and the situated and groundedcase studies that have often taken geographic research in such fruitful directions.Through a ceaseless movement between the concrete and the abstract, such workprovides hope not only for reinvigorating theoretical debates but also for shapingpraxis. It provides a material phenomenon through which the micropolitics of powerare connected with broader political ^ economic structures. And it provides specificpractices through which these connections might be subverted, challenged, and reversed.Through remaining open to potential conversations, tensions, and differences in thework of Gramsci and Foucault, we feel the academic and political terrain on whichwe operate might be transformed in positive and progressive ways.

Acknowledgements. This paper has had a remarkably long gestation. Many have helped it (and us)along the way. In particular, we would like to thankwhilst not holding them in any wayresponsible for the content of the paperKaren Bakker, Michelle Buckley, Zuzana Eperjesi,Olivier Graefe, Andrew Luck, Roger Keil, Stefan Kipfer, Stephanie Rutherford, Erik Swyngedouw,and three anonymous referees at Society and Space.

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Abstract1 Introduction2 Water and social power3 The promise of Gramsci and Foucault?4 Resonances and tensions5 Taking the dialogue forward6 ConclusionsAcknowledgementsReferencesCrossRef-enabled references

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