WATER CONSERVATION IN DESERT CITIES: FROM THE SOCIOECOLOGICAL FIX TO GESTURES OF ENDURANCE

Abstract

Abstract Urban water provision is the archetypal case for the recent wave of urban political ecology, using the concept of “fix” to illustrate belief in technical forms to solve socioecological problems like uneven water distribution and environmental degradation. On the one hand, this paper shows that the risks of water shortages in Arizona, USA are a technical concern. Professionals are dedicated to the promotion of water conservation to “fix” a dysfunctional hydro-social cycle. Yet, environmental organizations raise a critical approach to this “hydrocracy”. They defend local water supplies, river regeneration, and reuse as promoting a low water-use “desert lifestyle”. Building on the intellectual history of “fixes”, we apply Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “gesture”, signaling how, in places of deep water scarcity, water conservation policies remain within notions of growth, such that pauses in water availability leave open future promises of resource abundance so the moment of scarcity can be endured.