Toward a Sociology of Water: Reconstructing the Missing “Big Picture” of Social Water Research

Abstract

In recent years, significant advancements have been made in the field of social water research. This is especially reflected in the emergence and consolidation of three influential theoretical approaches in hydrology, human geography, and anthropology: socio-hydrology, hydrosocial theory, and the multiple ontologies of water, respectively. While the present paper acknowledges the great merits of each of these perspectives, it starts from the identification of two important shortcomings in current social water research: the dispersion of the literature in distinct disciplinary sub-fields and the lack of specifically sociological approaches to hydrosocial issues. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is twofold: to offer a “big picture” of current social water research from a sociological–theoretical perspective and to initiate a fruitful conversation between sociologists and social water researchers from other disciplines.