Mark Usher

BA (Hons) Sociology, University of Sheffield, 2005-2008.
MSc Environmental Politics and Policy, University of Leeds, 2008-2009.

Governing the hydrosocial cycle in Singapore: Tapping into the “intelligent island” discourse.

Supervisors: Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw.

Urban political ecology; water governance; governmentality studies; state natures; environmental security; Foucauldian theory; socio-materiality.

Water security figures prominently in the governmental strategy of nation-states given that it is vital for the health of the population, the functioning of the economy, and for political approval of the incumbent party. It is therefore not surprising that states will go to great lengths to secure sustainable water supply, particularly during the current era which is said to be threatened by water scarcity resulting from population growth, extensive urbanisation and climate change. Whilst the reality of the global water crisis has been disputed, and its multifarious and multifaceted causes regularly contested, there has nevertheless been a shift in governmental strategy from supply-oriented regulation to demand management and conservation in many parts of the world.

In this case study of Singapore, I will examine the ways in which the state has sought to overcome water shortage through an innovative and internationally acclaimed programme of supply and demand measures. With its absence of natural lakes and aquifers, the UN has classified Singapore as a water scarce country. Furthermore, Singapore has announced that it will not be renewing treaties with Malaysia to supply the water it so desperately needs, but to achieve complete water self-sufficiency in the intervening years will likely necessitate the most sophisticated water management system in the world. The Singaporean state has put a much greater emphasis on demand management as part of this programme, shifting attention to recycled wastewater and public education campaigns.

Departing from the state-centrism of international relations theory and political science, this study will analyse the internal biopolitics of water governance in all its quotidian complexity using Michel Foucault’s work on ‘governmentality’ and the rich vein of research this has generated. My research will discern how the identity of water has been constructed as a strategic resource and scarce commodity, amenable to technological control and bound up with a narrative of national vulnerability and utopianism. Concurrently, the identity of water users will be analysed to explore how public educational campaigns have tapped into the “intelligent island” discourse that permeates the everyday lives of its citizens, invoking imaginaries of national security, rational rule and civic consciousness to internalise principles of water conservation in its subjects. The study will also be alert to instances of resistance against governmental programmes by water users and by water itself.

The central argument being put forward by the project is that the state apparatus does not merely govern over water and water users as pre-existing objects, but instead actively and strategically attempts to produce them through rationalities and technologies of government. Indeed, water doesn’t only enter the arena of the political when drought or floods occur; these spectacular events of resistance instead serve to expose the inherently and perennially political nature of resource regulation in urban political ecologies of social power.

This PhD project is funded by an ESRC scholarship.