Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega, one of my fave WaterWonks, sent around the link to this 2007 paper by Martha Kaplan of Vassar College: 'Fijian Water in Fiji and New York: Local Politics and a Global Community', Cultural Anthropology, 22(4): 685-706 (2007).
Download KAPLAN-2007-Cultural_Anthropology
Abstract
In this article, I construct a transnational biography of Fijian water to discuss local politics of production and consumption of a now global commodity. I argue that a dialogical process has now complexly connected the cultural and national politics of the site of production, Fiji, to varied but now orchestrated cultural politics of myriad localities of consumption, here with a focus on upper New York state.Technological and transactional connections, however, do not translate into shared meanings or motives. Fijian Water as corporately purveyed invites a particularly U.S. kind of consumption—simultaneous commodity fetishism and appropriation—with roots in other U.S. political and body practices of consuming, inhabiting, and self-transforming.
Ah, Fiji Water!
Fascinating paper.
Here is an interview with Professor Kaplan in which she discusses her article.
The journal Cultural Anthropology has published a Curated Collection on Water, which can be accessed here. It includes Kaplan's paper and others.
Enjoy!
"Man is capable of reform once presented with the facts, and the fact is that bottling water and shipping it is a big waste of fuel, so stop already." - Garrison Keillor, Salt Lake Tribune (2007)
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