Gardening the World Agency, Identity and the Ownership of Water

"[This book] is both an impressive, intellectual synthesis of long-term ethnographic research and a provocation for water users and academic writers. Strang writes fluidly about two specific Australian water basin, yet readers will immediately be struck with the strong parallels in water use and policy from their own regions." * Journal of Anthropological Research "A significant strength of the book is the depth of research that it draws on - [It] is a very timely study of an important issue. It is extremely well researched and has real policy implications. There is no doubt that this book will be of wider interest, and appeal to many people concerned with human - environment relationships." * Anthropological Forum "The qualitative, thick ethnography, using narratives and cultural historical data, brings to the forefront many social aspects, such as gender - This is an important book not only from the point of view of competently dealing with the issue of water and its sustainability for future life on earth but also as a book of ecological anthropological theory." * Anthroplogical Notebooks "Veronica Strang draws a compelling fluidscape in masterly strokes to show that water belongs in its totality to a context, within a geographical area. She reminds the readers convincingly that water is an integral part of ecological order and describes how cultural values abstract this invaluable and finite natural resource. The meanings of water flow through and across sectoral boundaries to reveal sharp tensions between different uses of it. This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to know about water." * Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt Fellow, Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program Research, The Australian National University "...addresses an extremely important topic in an interesting way...a valuable contribution to the debate about water as a material and symbolic resource." * Kay Milton, Queen's University Belfast "This richly developed, well-argued work is an essential read for environmental scholars, students, and practitioners." * Barbara Rose Johnston, Senior Research Fellow, Center for Political Ecology