Global Solidarities Against Water Grabbing - (Progress in Political Economy) by Caitlin Schroering (Paperback)

About the Book

Globally, people are organizing against water privatization and to reclaim the public sphere. These struggles demonstrate how people are linking their disparate fights to win against private profit-driven interests; water is at the heart of this book, but the book is as much about collective struggle and popular organization as it is about water.

Book Synopsis

Conflicts over water are human-caused events with socio-political and economic causes. From Brazil's Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB) to environmental activists in Pittsburgh, people are coming together to fight for control of their water. This book examines how movements are communicating and organizing against water privatization and other forms of water grabbing, and explores how movements engage with and learn from each other. Water is at the heart of this book, but Global solidarities against water grabbing is as much about collective struggle and popular organization as it is about water. Based on extensive fieldwork with two movements fighting against water privatization, the book uses anticolonial and feminist research methods to show how global communications and organizing are occurring around water and how Global North movements are engaging with and learning from the Global South and vice versa.

From the Back Cover

Conflicts over water are human-caused events with socio-political and economic causes. From the Movement of People Affected by Dams in Brazil to Our Water Campaign in Pittsburgh, United States, people are coming together to fight for control of their water. This book examines how movements are communicating and organizing against water privatization and other forms of water grabbing, and explores how movements engage with and learn from each other.
Exploring major conflicts over water, the book illustrates how race, class, gender, sex and geographic location intersect in these moments of contestation. It observes the multi-scalar dimensions of social movements and campaigns fighting against water privatization as part of a larger project of contesting capitalism. It also sheds light on the mechanisms of power, envisioning alternative social structures, and emphasizing the significance of education and organization in fostering counter-hegemonic movements.
Drawing on political economy, feminist and decolonial/anticolonial research methods, and social movement studies amongst others, this multidisciplinary work allows us to imagine alternatives beyond capitalism. It allows activists and researchers to understand the locality of any concrete act of resistance against capitalist exploitation, while comprehending that the wider pressures of exploitation have a global structural source.

About the Author

Caitlin Schroering is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.