Amironesei, R., Scoville, C.
Groundwater in California: From Juridical and Biopolitical Governmentality to a Political Physics of Vital Processes
(2019) Theory, Culture and Society, 36 (5), pp. 133-157.
Abstract
This article analyzes the emergence of a political rationality of groundwater in contemporary California. It contrasts a new government of nature that we call a ‘political physics of vital processes’, operative in the case of the Orange County Water District, with juridical and biopolitical rationalities of groundwater governance. To do so, we propose a genealogical account grounded in a reading of a key concept in Aristotle’s first book of Politics. The case is analyzed along the axes of subjectivity, space, and temporality, opening to a novel way of conceptualizing the relation between power and nature. © The Author(s) 2019.
Author Keywords
Aristotle; biopolitics; Foucault; government of nature; groundwater; political rationality; water
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