Legal Geographies of Water

Cristy Clark’s groundbreaking book Legal Geographies of Water is a long-awaited and much-needed treatise on the relationship between law, people, and place, in the context of what is arguably the Earth’s most precious resource, water. It is impossible to thoughtfully approach critical concerns or opportunities arising from the growing global water crisis without paying careful attention to the closely entangled and locally embedded relationships of communities and territories. Yet the fields, methods, and approaches of law and geography have rarely been consciously brought together in water research. Clark’s new book confidently fills this gap, and I am equally confident that it will become the seminal analysis of legal geographies of water. This book is essential reading for teachers, scholars and practitioners of environmental and resources law, and the growing cohort of interdisciplinary and critical thinkers interested in the hydro-social world. Legal Geographies of Water is sophisticated in its conceptual depth, exploring the ‘pluriverse’ of water realities to uncover more radical, more just, and more diverse, alternative water realities. In doing so, the book deepens our understanding of humanity’s diverse relationships with water and the law and argues that addressing the water crisis requires a fundamental re-conceptualisation of human-water relationships through legal frameworks that recognise water’s material agency and relational nature. But this is not just ‘pie in the sky’ musing about an unreachable watery utopia. Clark uses several carefully constructed and materially distinct empirical case studies to explore her thoughts ‘on the ground’, which transcend space and time across four continents, and draw on her situated knowledge and reflexive positionality. This is difficult and determined research work, made possible by Clark’s obviously strong, reciprocal, research collaborations throughout the globe, allowing her to so skilfully cross the staunch yet unnecessary boundaries of disciplines, jurisdictions, and ontologies. Through Clark’s fluid research method, Legal Geographies of Water is a book that quenches the intellectual thirst, reflecting the very materiality of water, as something that flows, connects, and sustains us. Dr Elizabeth Macpherson, Professor of Law, Rutherford Discovery Fellow, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand