The Dynamics of Crisis: From Measurement to Everyday Life in the Middle East Jan Selby Department of International Relations, University of Sussex

Outline 1. Three discourses of water crisis 2. A very political infrastructure 3. Everyday practices of water management 4. Crisis? What crisis?

DiscourseProblemsSolutionsLikely outcomes EcologicalScarce or finite resources plus high populations Limit population growth Water wars 1. Three Discourses of Water Crisis

DiscourseProblemsSolutionsLikely outcomes EcologicalScarce or finite resources plus high populations Limit population growth Water wars TechnicalMismanagement and inefficiencies Improve management and efficiency Progress 1. Three Discourses of Water Crisis

DiscourseProblemsSolutionsLikely outcomes EcologicalScarce or finite resources plus high populations Limit population growth Water wars TechnicalMismanagement and inefficiencies Improve management and efficiency Progress PoliticalUneven distribution of power and resources Reduce power and resource inequalities Winners and losers 1. Three Discourses of Water Crisis

2. A Very Political Infrastructure

Khaled Batrakh Reservoir, Hebron 2m 5m to Kiryat Arba to Hebron and Kiryat Arba

3. Everyday Practices of Water Management a. Municipal water authorities b. Household supply management c. Household demand management

3. Everyday Practices of Water Management a. Municipal water authorities b. Household supply management c. Household demand management Heterogeneity Everyday expertise Social significance of coping practices

This is good for us, good to learn; it teaches people how to get things from the difficult life... you will do anything to make you human; if you have a satellite, everything you need, you will stop thinking about Young man, Dheisheh refugee camp, while filling water from a small spring You feel like youre not human. Woman, Dheisheh refugee camp, on the experience of water shortage

4. Crisis? What Crisis? a. Experts, measurement and crisis b. Experts and their irrational others: politics and culture c. But when one studies practices and experiences one finds: - mundane normalcy of crisis - rational supply and demand management