ABSTRACT
Unprecedented rates of urban growth are challenging traditional models of development and natural resource management worldwide. Successful urban growth is largely measured through the macro lens of political economy, particularly those in fast-paced developing economies like Asia. These macro-level shifts of urbanization are built upon micro-level changes to cultures and environments which are often more profoundly woven into the mundane experiences of everyday life. By understanding the growth of Asian cities through the flows of people, water and hydrosocial rhetoric, water becomes more than just a resource, but rather, its control becomes a socio-cultural marker of legitimacy in participation in development. For the millions that live in Delhi’s underserved water communities, water allocation can be traced alongside claims to legitimacy of lifestyle and legitimacy of life. As Delhi becomes increasingly committed to its world-class urban identity, alternate forms of living within the city are discouraged and enforced through water: stagnating water flows that directly impact lives (O’Leary 2016) and silencing the epistemologies which interpret and valuate water. These hydrological epistemologies, or ways of knowing water, translate onto the aspirational futures of millions of water users, impacting waterscapes across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
