ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on water as a principal configurative force in society. The idea is to show some of the ways in which social life and community building are constituted by the access to water and to the resources that come along with a particular water body in the immediate environment. It discusses some elemental qualities of water, that surfacing in various forms all over the world, sometimes to quickly evaporate or disappear into the ground, sometimes to flow peacefully across vast landscapes, shaping people's experiences. Leonardo da Vinci also addressed water's different forms, such as steam, mist, rain, snow, and hail, in addition to the sea, as well as its movement and propensity for seeking out the lowest lying places when flowing unhindered, and its power to wear down mountains and river banks over time. Water configures social forms, and, conversely, that people configure water, by defining and distributing the resources, and by taming and exploiting its liquid powers.
