Abstract
Abstract. Switzerland appears to be a privileged place to investigate the urban political ecology of tap water because of the specificities of its political culture and organization and the relative abundance of drinking water in the country. In this paper, we refer to a Foucauldian theorization of power that is increasingly employed in the social sciences, including in human geography and political ecology. We also implement a Foucauldian methodology. In particular, we propose an archaeo-genealogical analysis of discourse to apprehend the links between urban water and the forms of governmentality in Switzerland between 1850 and 1950. Results show that two forms of governmentality, namely biopower and neoliberal governmentality, were present in the water sector in the selected period. Nonetheless, they deviate from the models proposed by Foucault, as their periodization and the classification of the technologies of power related to them prove to be much more blurred than Foucault's work, mainly based on France, might have suggested.
Highlights
The relatively recent field of urban political ecology (UPE; cf. Heynen et al, 2006) provides a thorough conceptual framework for apprehending urban water
Kendall and Wickham, 1999), we found that biopower and neoliberal governmentality were the main forms of governmentality implemented in the urban water distribution sector in Switzerland between 1850 and 1950
The historical data confirm historical events pointed out in literature about the history of water networks and hygiene in Switzerland, such as the strategies for the construction of water networks. They are coherent with regard to the deep relation between water networks and the ideologies of modernity and progress which has been thoroughly analyzed in the domain of urban political ecology of water
Summary
The relatively recent field of urban political ecology (UPE; cf. Heynen et al, 2006) provides a thorough conceptual framework for apprehending urban water. The concept of the hydrosocial cycle (Swyngedouw, 2009) conceives urban water as a “hybrid” (Swyngedouw, 1999:444– 445), a “techno-nature” (Giglioli and Swyngedouw, 2008) possessing both a physical and a social component that co-construct each other. Simultaneously shapes urban politics, conflicts and power differentials and is shaped by them. This conceptualization at the core of the sub-field of the urban political ecology of water has inspired a wide geo-historical research activity (cf Swyngedouw, 1997, 2004; Kaika, 2003, 2012; Giglioli and Swyngedouw, 2008)
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