Taking inspiration from Foucauldian work on governmentality and historical materialist approaches, this thesis examines the political ecology of compulsory water metering in the South East of England. Here, three main contributions are offered. First, a genealogy of water metering (1840 to 2009) is developed in order to demonstrate the multiple ways that the meter has been used to help negotiate different understandings of the waterscape. Secondly, contemporary compulsory metering programmes are positioned as a socio-technical fix where water companies have attempted to, at least partially, resolve a tension between water stress and household water demand and, at the same time, secure the continuation of the broadly neoliberal waterscape. Finally, the thesis examines the unanticipated outcomes of compulsory metering; it focuses on how affordability has been reframed as an important and immediate governance problem that requires private water companies to take on new roles, sometimes reluctantly, as water welfare providers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:676927 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Nash, Fiona Jane |
| Contributors | Loftus, Alexander John ; Cleaver, Frances Dalton |
| Publisher | King's College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/measuring-fairness(29e333e5-424d-4062-936b-e4296ffc225e).html |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds