Waters swirl in oceans and atmospheric rivers, flow through our bodies, circulate in surface and groundwater, and determine the shape of livelihoods, cultures, histories, geologies, and life on Earth. Yet water's meanings are too often constrained, especially by predatory economic, extractive practices and the structures that support them. These patterns continue to lead to pollution, scarcity, and constraint of waters worldwide, imperiling human and more-than-human lives.
Other ways of regarding and relating to waters are possible. To centralize waters' vitalities, each chapter in Water for All invites the reader to learn about constructive, alternative water-visions and water-practices from contexts and ways of understanding and relating to water around the world. Along the way, the book diagnoses key patterns that constrain waters' possibilities for flowing toward justice; it invites the reader to consider how specific topics like agriculture and food choices, or technology and AI, relate to water demand; and it provides specific catalysts for spiritual-moral reflection alongside practical suggestions for readers to engage these topics directly in their own lives.
Written from an intersectional, anti-colonial feminist stance, Water for All is a moral, spiritual, and political-ecological invitation to consider how human modes of meaning-making can shape water futures toward inclusive flourishing. Like all books in the Building a Moral Economy series, Water for All is oriented around techniques for envisioning and seeking change at individual, institutional, and structural levels.