ABSTRACT
Water, whether fresh or salt, has been an essential part of human culture and history. Each story of livelihood extracted from water tells of the ebbs and flows of the creation of the national and global economy, made by people with cultures, not just capital. For example, the Indian Ocean is not just the Indian Ocean rim, a regionalization based on capital flows, with an empty centre. An historical and cultural perspective such as Gilroy’s pinpoints how traditional economic ideas are inadequate to explain historical developments (Gilroy 1993). The neoclassical and Marxist ‘labour theory of value’ doesn’t apply well to forests, rivers or the sea, and current notions of economic development conflict with ecological stability. This book attempts to restore water, both fresh and salt, to its central position in human endeavour, ecology and environment.
