"This book makes the legal complexities of water resource management and irrigation very clear, illustrating the dilemma in responding to the multiplicity of water rights. I recommend this as required reading for any course that treats issues of water management in developing countries."-Gilbert Levine, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

"Well-written and incisive, the essays in Liquid Relations are notable for their theoretical sophistication and wide global reach. It is a landmark, ground-breaking work on one of the important issues of our time."-Paul H. Gelles, author of Water and Power in Highland Peru: The Cultural Politics of Irrigation and Development

"This book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the global problem of increasing competition for fresh water by applying the insights of legal pluralism to the understudied issue of water rights."-Robert C. Hunt, Brandeis University

Water management plays an increasingly critical role in national and international policy agendas. Growing scarcity, overuse, and pollution, combined with burgeoning demand, have made socio-political and economic conflicts almost unavoidable. Proposals to address water shortages are usually based on two key assumptions: (1) water is a commodity that can be bought and sold and (2) "states," or other centralized entities, should control access to water.

Liquid Relations criticizes these assumptions from a socio-legal perspective. Eleven case studies examine laws, distribution, and irrigation in regions around the world, including the United States, Nepal, Indonesia, Chile, Ecuador, India, and South Africa. In each case, problems are shown to be both ecological and human-made-the locally specific outcomes of social, political, and environmental histories. The essays also consider the ways that gender, ethnicity, and class differences influence water rights and control.

In the concluding chapter, the editors draw on the essays' findings to offer an alternative approach to water rights and water governance issues. By showing how issues like water scarcity and competition are embedded in specific resource use and management histories, this volume highlights the need for analyses and solutions that are context-specific rather than universal.

Contributors are Vishwa Ballabh, Rutgerd Boelens, Bryan Bruns, Ingo Gentes, David H. Getches, Armando Guevara Gil, Nitish Jha, Barbara van Koppen, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Rajendra Pradhan, Anjal Prakash, Amreeta Regmi, Dik Roth, Pranita Bhushan Udas, Patricia Urteaga, and Margreet Zwarteveen.

Dik Roth is a researcher and lecturer on legal anthropology, natural resources management, and development in the department of social sciences, law, and governance group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Rutgerd Boelens and Margreet Zwarteveen are researchers and lecturers on water rights, water management and development policies in the department of environmental sciences, also at Wageningen University.

Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Legal Complexity in the Analysis of Water Rights and Water Resources Management
Rutgerd Boelens, Margreet Zwarteveen, and Dik Roth
Chapter 2: Prescribing Gender Equity? The Case of the Tukucha Nala Irrigation System, Central Nepal
Pranita Bhushan Udas and Margreet Zwarteveen
Chapter 3: Defending Indigenous Water Rights with the Laws of a Dominant Culture: The Case of the United States
David H. Getches
Chapter 4: In the Shadow of Uniformity. Balinese Irrigation Management in a Public Works Irrigation System in Luwu, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Dik Roth
Chapter 5: Anomalous Water Rights and the Politics of Normalization. Collective Water Control and Privatization Policies in the Andean Region.
Rutgerd Boelens and Margreet Zwarteveen
Chapter 6: Complexities of Water Governance: Rise and Fall of Groundwater for Urban Use
Amreeta Regmi
Chapter 7: Special Law: Recognition and Denial of Diversity in Andean Water Control
Rutgerd Boelens, Ingo Gentes, Armando Guevara Gil, and Patricia Urteaga
Chapter 8: A Win-Some Lose-All Game. Social Differentiation and Politics of Groundwater Markets in North Gujarat
Anjal Prakash and Vishwa Ballabh
Chapter 9: Redressing Racial Inequities through Water Law in South Africa: Interaction and Contest among Legal Frameworks
Barbara van Koppen and Nitish Jha
Chapter 10: Routes to Water Rights
Bryan Bruns
Chapter 11: Analyzing Water Rights, Multiple Uses and Intersectoral Water Transfers
Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Rajendra Pradhan
Chapter 12: Water Rights and Legal Pluralism: Beyond Analysis and Recognition
Margreet Zwarteveen, Dik Roth and Rutgerd Boelens
Bibliography
Index