3 Review(s)

Water has always been essential to cities, but more than that, it is a crucial element of urban life in South Asia, materializing through remarkable waterscapes and practices. Looking at a broad geographical and historical scale, Accessing Water in the South Asian City discusses the role played by urban socio-religious constructs in the shaping of exceptional, complex, and sometimes problematic, waterscapes.Besides examining the question of resources and inconsistencies in water access, the volume focuses on the forces that converge in facilitating or in impeding access to water in the urban context, in the past and in the present. Water is a political affair not just because it relates to power and politics, but because it is an essential affair of the ‘polis’, the urban community. Anthropogenized water spaces offer an exceptional opportunity for urban dwellers to engage with nature, interact with fellow urbanites and be active producers of a new, inspiring kind of urbanity.