The price of austerity: Vital politics and the struggle for public water in southern Italy

Abstract

This article approaches austerity from the vantage point of its alter ego, financialization, in so far as the radical depletion of public funds creates the conditions for private investment in public goods – including water. It tracks the intense volatilities generated out of the financialization of water by exploring the Italian water movement’s campaign of ‘civil obedience’ – an attempt on the part of citizens to stabilize and thus render just the volatile price of a vital good. It argues that these ‘vital politics’ of citizen price‐setting are a form of valuation emerging from below, an anti‐financialization emerging in our era of predatory finance.