ABSTRACT
Framing privatization/marketization as a process of ongoing 're-negotiation of resource governance' enables everyone to grapple with the specific mechanisms and pathways by which certain ideologies and discourses become hegemonic, and to identify counter-hegemonic discourses and practices, which compete with, and may eventually unseat, 'master narratives' by which resources are governed. Hegemony is a useful analytical tool for explaining why certain concepts come to dominate governance practices, for example to explain the sudden surge in private-sector activity within developing countries in the 1990s. The concept of variegation is deployed to analyze the variable historical and geographical expressions of privatization and marketization of water supply. The author's quick tour of developments in Europe, North America and the global South sketches out some of the key trends, players, issues and politics invaluable context for situating the case studies provided by K'akumu and Waters.
