Introduction

This chapter analyses how scientists, engineers and water users engage in rearranging the morphology of the Nile and thereby shape their relative positions vis à vis each other and the river. It aims to contribute to the forging of new alliances to support more equitable and sustainable forms of Nile development. The chapter provides a brief genealogy of the modern concept of water security. It introduces the concepts that inform the morphological approach to analyse and displace the modern separations between technologies and politics through which modern water security comes in to being. Colonial water security was thus portrayed as a civilising project for the development and betterment of mankind. Like water, people, especially non-European people, were rendered as vital resources whose development would be secured by giving them a place in imperial production. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.