BIBLID [1130-2887 (2015) 69, 75-93] Fecha de recepción: 16 de agosto del 2014 Fecha de aceptación: 9 de enero del 2015 RESUMEN: Este artículo identifica la importancia del agua subterránea transfronteriza Mé-xico-Estados Unidos, en relación con el vacío jurídico que predomina en su regulación en las diferentes escalas que intervienen en el uso, manejo y extracción de la misma y el significado de la escasez hídrica en la configuración del discurso hegemónico de seguridad nacional en el panorama neoliberal de integración regional del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN).Palabras clave: aguas subterráneas; frontera; escasez hídrica; TLCAN; soberanía nacional.ABSTRACT: This paper identifies the importance of transboundary groundwater between Mexico and United States of America, in relation to legal gaps within its regulation on the different scales of management, handling and pumping, and the significance of water scarcity in the construction of hegemonic discourse of homeland security on a neoliberal view of regional integration of NAFTA.

Calls for more broad-based, integrated, useful knowledge now abound in the world of global environmental change science. They evidence many scientists’ desire to help humanity confront the momentous biophysical implications of its own actions. But they also reveal a limited conception of social science and virtually ignore the humanities. They thereby endorse a stunted conception of ‘human dimensions’ at a time when the challenges posed by global environmental change are increasing in magnitude, scale and scope. Here, we make the case for a richer conception predicated on broader intellectual engagement and identify some preconditions for its practical fulfilment. Interdisciplinary dialogue, we suggest, should engender plural representations of Earth’s present and future that are reflective of divergent human values and aspirations. In turn, this might insure publics and decision-makers against overly narrow conceptions of what is possible and desirable as they consider the profound questions raised by global environmental change

In this essay contemporary Marxist writings on the commodification of nature in capitalist societies are reviewed systematically. Recent research on commodities in human geography, cultural studies and related fields have been largely post or non-Marxist in tenor and have paid relatively little attention to the ‘natural’ dimensions of commodities. By contrast, recent Marxist writings about capitalism-nature relations have tried to highlight both the specificity of capitalist commodification and its effects on ecologies and bodies. This fact notwithstanding, it is argued that the explanatory and normative dimensions of this Marxist work are, respectively, at risk of being misunderstood and remain largely implicit. On the explanatory side, confusion arises because the words ‘commodification’ and ‘nature’ are used by different Marxists to refer to different things that deserve to be disentangled. On the normative side, the Marxian criticisms of nature's commodification are rarely explicit and often assumed to be self-evident. The essay offers a typology of commodification processes relating to specific natures with specific effects to which a variety of criticisms can be applied. Though essentially exegetical rather than reconstructive, the essay tries to pave the way for a more precise sense of how the commodification of nature in capitalist societies works and why it might be deemed to be problematic.

IntroductionThis paper, together with its predecessor (Castree, 2008), comprises a systematic review of new research by critical geographers on the neoliberalisation of relations with the nonhuman world. This research focuses on`actually existing neoliberalism', and its volume is fast growing, posing a perennial challenge for those wishing to draw upon it in their own teaching and research: namely, the challenge of identifying`signals in the noise'. Making sense of the new critical geographic research on nature's neoliberalisation is no mean feat, such is the diversity of biophysical resources, geographical scales, places, and actors focused upon in case-study research. In light of this fact, I have organised my review around four fundamental questions, as follows: why are human interactions with otherwise different nonhuman phenomena being neoliberalised in many parts of the world?; what are the principal ways in which nature's neoliberalisation operates?; what are the outcomes of nature's neoliberalisation?; and how should we evaluate this process? Answering these questions systematically can give us a handle on the why and how of nature's neoliberalisation (causality), as well as real purchase on what the process does (effects) and how we might evaluate the phenomenon (normative judgment). Given the apparent hegemony of neoliberal thought and practice in many environmental policy domains worldwide, it is arguably important to take stock of the emerging critical research literature and identify lessons learnt to date and tasks for future research.