New publication on how the inequality crisis is linked to the sociogenesis of climate change

SCI Honorary Professor Mark Harvey co-published a new article in Water International with Aviram Sharma. It’s entitled ‘Economies of water in Delhi: a neo-Polanyian analysis’ and can be accesses on the journal website.

The paper develops an approach to the emergence of multiple economies of water in India’s capital Delhi, using a neo-Polanyian approach of instituted economic process. Prof Harvey argues that water is an ‘uncooperative public good’ and analyses the systems of provision, distribution, appropriation and consumption of water, and the formation of scales of these economies of water.

Piped water (legally supplied and illegally diverted, paid and unpaid for), registered and unregistered bore wells, standpipes (legal and illegal), water tankers, street vendors, commercial and public bottled water make up the wide array of water provisioning elements.

The paper systematically compares and analyses the spatially divided and partially overlapping economies of water in the planned colonies and slum designated areas in the city. It also describes the dynamics of growth and stagnation of the different economies of water within the waterscape of the capital, as well as widespread water poverty. Entrenched inequalities to both public and market water in different economies of water are symptomatic of the wider political economy, and its pervasive fault lines.

You can also watch Professor Harvey talk about this paper and discuss the limitations of UN’s political processes in dealing with climate change on the YouTube channel of the Global Social Challenges Journal.