The ubiquity of water is demonstrated in almost everything we come into contact with. It’s responsible for everyday objects like blue jeans, bread, and coffee, it rushes through pipes below our feet, is necessary for industrial violence like fracking, mapped through watersheds, exists as a healing modality, and is also a great source of pleasure - yet most of us take water for granted as a mundane necessity, rarely stopping to look at how tightly water is woven into politics, science, and the economy. 

This week on the podcast we look at the power and ubiquity of water in a world where it is becoming scarce with guest Andrea Ballestero. Thinking back to water launching as a commodity on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 2020, Andrea explores the tensions that exist between a human right and a commodity, water futures, pricing mechanisms, the fallacy of rationing and block pricing, and water scarcity. How do we distinguish the difference between commodity versus right? Why do we need to problematize our tendency towards a water-war defined future? As we sink into the many paradoxes surrounding our relationship with water, Andrea reminds us to center water as a collective concern that should unite us, as opposed to an individual property that can be traded and hoarded.

Andrea Ballestero is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University and she is also the founder and director of the Ethnography Studio. Her background includes a law degree, training in Natural Resource Policy, and a Ph.D. in anthropology. She has more than fifteen years of experience researching how societies define, distribute, and value water. She is interested in how technical knowledge embodies ethical and political values. Her recent book, A Future History of Water (Duke, 2019), examines the daily work of implementing the human right to water in Costa Rica and in Northeast Brazil. This book is open access and available for download for free on her website. Dr. Ballestero is currently researching cultural imaginaries of the underground in Costa Rica, particularly of aquifers, to understand how the social world is expanding downwards and how people attempt to establish new forms of responsibility towards inaccessible places and resources. Her research and all of her publications can be found at https://andreaballestero.com/.

♫ Music featured in this episode is “Aaahhahhh” by The Pit-Yak Aiodoi, “Water Keeper” by Palo-Mah (Suculima), and “Whole Again” by Jahnavi Veronica.

Episode References

A Future History of Water by Andrea Ballestero

“The ethics of a formula: Calculating a financial–humanitarian price for water” by Andrea Ballestero

“Wall Street Begins Trading Water Futures as a Commodity”

Andrea’s Recommendations

A Future History of Water by Andrea Ballestero 

“Aquifers (or, Hydrolithic Elemental Choreographies)” by Andrea Ballestero 

“Spongiform” by Andrea Ballestero 

“Spongy Aquifers, Messy Publics” by Andrea Ballestero

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