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The economic anthropology of water
Author(s) -
Wutich Amber,
Beresford Melissa
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
economic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2330-4847
DOI - 10.1002/sea2.12153
Subject(s) - scholarship , commodification , sustainability , economic anthropology , politics , ecological anthropology , sociology , sociocultural anthropology , political ecology , social science , political science , ecology , economy , anthropology , economics , economic growth , history , anthropology of art , contemporary art , performance art , law , biology , art history
Anthropological research on water and economy has a long and rich history, especially among archaeologists and political economy scholars. In this review article, we discuss contemporary anthropological scholarship on water and economy to identify still‐active areas of long‐standing theoretical interest as well as novel theoretical approaches. We present five important threads of scholarship on the economic anthropology of water: (1) commodification, exchange, and diverse economies; (2) the political ecology of water; (3) resilience and sustainability; (4) institutions; and (5) water and health. We explain how these theoretical approaches fit into broader trends in anthropological scholarship on water, explore how they advance the economic anthropology of water specifically, and identify ways that economic anthropologists can make new contributions to these literatures.