ABSTRACT
Most of the water usage in the UK – as in other industrialised countries – takes place within the domestic sphere, and it is here that levels of use are rising so intractably and unsustainably. This chapter considers water in a domestic context, and points to some of the relationships between changes in the wider cultural landscape, rising patterns of usage, and concerns about water quality. The separation of domestic space from wider landscapes is concretised in the material culture that carries water invisibly to individuated homes. The perceptual disconnections that water supply technology introduced between domestic usage and environmental effects are repeated in the material culture that organises the disposal of waste water and sewage. Although much has been written about the political and economic impact of the enclosure and alienation of land and resources, there has been little investigation of the way that continual shrinkage in ‘identifiable’ home space affects people’s resource use.
