Exploring the relationship between water and stone in underground aquifers, in this installment of the “Ways of Water” series, Andrea Ballestero shows how binary models used in water management fail to account for the more fluid realities of natural resources. Using this example, Ballestero questions the distinction often made by systems that extract these resources between that which is “lively” and that which is “inert”—where substances that lie beneath the earth are viewed as sitting there, quietly waiting for governments and corporations to extract them and put them to use, frequently for profit. She proposes that techno-legal devices, such as models used to support resources extraction, can also inspire new questions, and ultimately, a new, and more liberatory, politics of water.
