Holy water: the works of water in defining and understanding holiness

Oestigaard, Terje

doi:10.1002/wat2.1205

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…In many religions, water is important for purification, prayer, and other rituals (Oestigaard, 2017). Some religious texts and practices also emphasize an ethic of care that underlies practices of water sharing (Staddon, 2010).…”

Section: Section 2: Cross-cutting Factors That Shape Water Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household water sharing: A review of water gifts, exchanges, and transfers across cultures

et al. 2018

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Water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households with water and to one another. Water sharing can take many forms, including so-called “pure gifts,” balanced exchanges, and negative reciprocity. In this paper, we examine water sharing between households as a culturally-embedded practice that may be both need-based and symbolically meaningful. Drawing on a wide-ranging review of diverse literatures, we describe how households practice water sharing cross-culturally in the context of four livelihood strategies (hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, agricultural, and urban). We then explore how cross-cutting material conditions (risks and costs/benefits, infrastructure and technologies), socio-economic processes (social and political power, water entitlements, ethnicity and gender, territorial sovereignty), and cultural norms (moral economies of water, water ontologies, and religious beliefs) shape water sharing practices. Finally, we identify five new directions for future research on water sharing: conceptualization of water sharing; exploitation and status accumulation through water sharing, biocultural approaches to the health risks and benefits of water sharing, cultural meanings and socio-economic values of waters shared; and water sharing as a way to enact resistance and build alternative economies.

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Section: Section 2: Cross-cutting Factors That Shape Water Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household water sharing: A review of water gifts, exchanges, and transfers across cultures

et al. 2018

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“…As a resource that both resists and succumbs to commodity status, water has been a powerful lens to explore the entanglements of different forms of human value (Johnston et al ). Examinations of “holy waters” and the significance of water in religious and spiritual rituals, for example, exemplify inalienable meanings that people hold for water (Alley ; Drew ; Oestigaard ). Ethnographers also show the role that water plays in forming identities, solidifying social relationships, and marking cultural heritage (Kaplan ; Sikkink ; Strang , ; Veeravalli ; Wagner ).…”

Section: Commodification Exchange and Diverse Economiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic anthropology of water

Wutich

Beresford

2019

Economic Anthropology

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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.

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“…There are myriad cultural‐religious ontologies and values that deserve to be seen, enfolded, and centralized in discourses about fresh waters' values. And if Groenfeldt is right that “water governance is all about values,” then those cultural‐religious ontologies and values that have been long occluded also have implications for governance (Groenfeldt, ; see also Norman, ; Oestigaard, ; Strang, ; Sullivan, ; Wateau, ; Wolf, ; Yates, Harris, & Wilson, ).…”

Section: Aperture 2: Discourses Of Liberal Governance—human Right To mentioning

confidence: 99%

Valuing fresh waters

Zenner

2019

WIREs Water

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In an era increasingly focused on the question of how to value fresh water, this essay argues that questions of value cannot be parsed apart from the multiple ontologies that undergird those value judgments. Returning to Nelson's observation that water exists "in a metaphysical blindspot," this essay describes what chastened metaphysics have to do with fresh waters' pluralities and depicts three apertures by which contemporary water discourses delineate fresh waters' values: economic theory and neoliberal market practice, paradigms of liberal governance, and culturalreligious multiplicities. In the latter, fresh waters' life-giving properties tend to be accorded central respect in ways that often exceed the ontological understandings and moral possibilities preferred by western liberal discourses in an era that has been decisively shaped by scientific, hydraulic/extractive modernity and rational planning. Parsing the ways that selected cultural-religious formulations align with or challenge dominant governance paradigms, this essay argues that decolonial ways of proceeding are necessary if value discourse and ethical action are to be substantially oriented toward the inclusive, long-term flourishing of human and other bodies of waters. The final section summarizes these claims and underscores necessary warnings. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Value of Water Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Human Water > Methods K E Y W O R D S cultural-religious multiplicities, decolonial methods, human right to water, ontology of fresh waters, value of water 1 | INTRODUCTION: FRAMING FRESH WATERS The value of water is a rising conceptual infatuation for twenty-first century agents of water distribution (High Level Panel on Water, 2018a; Value of Water Campaign, 2019; Watershed, 2017). Recognizing Nelson's (2003) assertion that "water exists in a metaphysical blindspot," this essay first argues that fresh waters are plural, not singular, and that questions of value cannot be parsed apart from the multiple ontologies that undergird those value judgments, with implications for contemporary water discourses. Next, this essay depicts three apertures by which contemporary water discourses delineate fresh waters' values: economic theory and neoliberal market practice, paradigms of liberal governance, and cultural-religious multiplicities. The typology provided by these three apertures is of course permeable, but it is also an instructive heuristic for the project of gaining clarity on how different strands of water discourse inflect the conclusions drawn about fresh waters' values. While the first two apertures on economic theory and governance, respectively, will be familiar to many readers, the third aperture-culturalreligious multiplicities-may seem far afield. "Cultural-religious multiplicities" is a term used here to depict the epistemic commitment that cultural, customary, and religious ecological rationalities and practices are often interwoven; that they are many in number and kind; and that th...

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Holy water: the works of water in defining and understanding holiness

Cited by 16 publications

References 28 publications

Household water sharing: A review of water gifts, exchanges, and transfers across cultures

Household water sharing: A review of water gifts, exchanges, and transfers across cultures

The economic anthropology of water

Valuing fresh waters

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