Open research questions in Water Governance and Infrastructure

What the literature leaves open

• The study faced restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic during the data collection phase. The study had to adapt to the lack of access to primary data and rely on documentary research.

  “The River Means My Life. Without it, I Am Nobody”: Conflict Over Water Intensified by Agribusiness Involving Traditional Communities in the Middle São Francisco River Basin, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in assessing the socio-environmental impacts of public irrigation projects in the region. There is a lack of studies on the socio-environmental conflicts in the Middle São Francisco River Basin.

  “The River Means My Life. Without it, I Am Nobody”: Conflict Over Water Intensified by Agribusiness Involving Traditional Communities in the Middle São Francisco River Basin, Brazil · 2026 · DOI

• The persistence of pollution in urban rivers despite repeated remediation efforts. The lack of understanding of the intersection of hydrological modulation, infrastructural intervention, and everyday endurance. The need for a conceptual framework to explain the durability of socio-ecological functioning under prolonged degradation.

  Waiting Beside the Black River: Stalled Agency and the Moral Ecology of Post-Resilience Hanoi · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies the challenge of making disparate sources commensurable, particularly in the context of cross-contextualization. It highlights the need to be mindful of differences and vernacular contexts when bringing together different kinds of evidence. The paper also notes the challenge of scaling temporal data and making commensurable different kinds of sources, including physical traces and human factors.

  Cross-Contextualizing the Histories and Politics of Environmental Proxies · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the existing literature, which has tended to focus on the Western canon of accumulating new knowledge. It argues that cross-contextualization can help to reveal the social processes and political stakes involved in constructing knowledge about the natural world. The paper highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of the construction of knowledge about the natural world, one that takes into account the diverse sources and perspectives that have been involved.

  Cross-Contextualizing the Histories and Politics of Environmental Proxies · 2026 · DOI

• There is a gap in understanding what sort of agency is demarcated by the possession and exercise of two-way powers. The paper identifies a need to bring together historical and contemporary work on two-way powers. There is a lack of clarity on the significance of two-way powers in understanding free will and agency.

  Introduction: Two-Way Powers: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives · 2025 · DOI

• ABSTRACT Unreliable energy infrastructure is a defining yet understudied dimension of everyday precarity in informal settlements.

  Geographies of Unreliable Power: Energy Insecurity and Everyday Life in a South African Informal Settlement · 2026 · DOI

• The analysis thus not only sheds light on an underexplored case but also helps conceptualise agroecological coalition-building beyond global opportunity structures and strategic calculations of movement actors.

  On tractors and bicycles against water reservoirs: climate change adaptation, agricultural unions, and cross-movement coalitions · 2025 · DOI

• Future research should explore the ways in which the political economy of land access shapes the governance of basic services in dormitory settlements. The study's findings suggest a need for more research on the impact of infrastructural inequalities on socio-environmental outcomes in these areas.

  Infrastructural inequity in urban expansion: water, sanitation, and waste in the city of Polokwane's dormitory locations of Juju Valley and Mamahule Park · 2026 · DOI

• There is a gap in understanding how the specific political economy of land access shapes the governance of basic services in the larger dormitory setting. The paper identifies a need for more nuanced research on the complex relationships between infrastructure, governance, and socio-environmental outcomes in dormitory settlements.

  Infrastructural inequity in urban expansion: water, sanitation, and waste in the city of Polokwane's dormitory locations of Juju Valley and Mamahule Park · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the recognition of the Infrastructure Transition Debt. The analysis highlights the need for a coordination-centred framework for distributed electrification resilience. The paper identifies a gap in the policy framework for micro-hydropower as transition debt recovery.

  Micro-Hydropower as Transition Debt Recovery: Reactivating Historical Water Infrastructure for Electrification Resilience in Central Europe · 2026 · DOI

• Existing scholarship does not often address how constitutional design impacts sub-national capacity. The study works to advance the research gap and examine the constitutional frameworks and political strategies.

  Leveraging the Climate Crisis · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in the literature on how women's ecological labour is framed in state-sponsored and non-governmental organisation-led discourses, - The paper highlights the need to recognize the value of women's ecological labour

  Between utopia and precarity: subsistence labour as embodied technology in Indian ecological documentaries · 2026 · DOI

• Future research could examine how sacred and feminised ecologies are co-opted across varied religious and cultural scenarios in other Himalayan regions such as Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, and how such communities negotiate and resist the spiritual green- washing in their ongoing struggles for land and livelihood.

  Between utopia and precarity: subsistence labour as embodied technology in Indian ecological documentaries · 2026 · DOI

• Further research could explore the relationship between people and other urban waterways. The study's findings could be applied to other contexts, such as coastal cities or rural areas. Future research could examine the impact of climate change on human-water relations in urban areas.

  Facing the Lake: Attention, Attachment and Everyday Life on Chicago's Lakefront · 2026 · DOI

• There is a lack of understanding of how human-water relations are produced through specific spatial, material, and social arrangements. The relationship between people and the Lake in Chicago is not well studied. The study aims to fill this gap by exploring the socio-material assemblage of the lakefront.

  Facing the Lake: Attention, Attachment and Everyday Life on Chicago's Lakefront · 2026 · DOI

• Climate breakdown and biodiversity emergency. The need for cities to align with natural systems. The challenge of determining a clear process to establish what specific areas communities exist within.

  Drinkable cities. A regenerative approach for cities and their rivers · 2026 · DOI

• The loss of indigenous connections with place in contemporary society. The need for a regenerative approach that incorporates bioregionalism and municipalism.

  Drinkable cities. A regenerative approach for cities and their rivers · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the discussion on environmental and occupational justice in the context of tunnel collapses. The research highlights the need for incorporating justice-based frameworks into Himalayan development policy.

  Environmental and Social Dimensions of Tunnel Collapse Negligence in the Himalayan Region · 2026 · DOI

• Further analysis of the impact of pollution on public health and the environment - Investigation of the effectiveness of different pollution control strategies - Examination of the role of community participation in pollution control efforts

  Challenges to Pollution Prevention and Control in Telangana: Institutional, Socio-Economic, and Environmental Barriers to Sustainable Development · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of effective governance and community participation in pollution control - The insufficient use of modern monitoring technologies - The need for improved coordination between different authorities

  Challenges to Pollution Prevention and Control in Telangana: Institutional, Socio-Economic, and Environmental Barriers to Sustainable Development · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of social indicators in riparian assessment tools. The need for more inclusive and context-sensitive tools for urban riparian quality assessment.

  Co-construction of social dimensions of environmental quality for urban riverbanks · 2026 · DOI

• The need for resilient models for rural environmental governance. The lack of integration of traditional ecological knowledge into formal rural policies.

  Indigenous Environmental Governance and Socio-Ecological Resilience: Examining the Subak System as a Model for Sustainable Rural Development in Bali · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in existing research on the historical and cultural context of urban development in Varanasi. The paper highlights the need to consider the complex relationships between state power, urban development, and environmental change.

  Urban transformation, state power, and climate vulnerability in Varanasi, India: A three-century perspective · 2026 · DOI

• Future research can investigate the long-term impact of the revitalization on community welfare. Further studies can explore the applicability of the participatory approach in other community development contexts.

  Revitalisasi Unit Tandon Air Bersih Bumdes Sebagai Upaya Peningkatan Kesejahteraan Masyarakat Desa Talungeng · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Water Governance and Infrastructure

• The Ethnography of Infrastructure · American Behavioral Scientist · 1999 · 3,091 citations
• The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure · Annual Review of Anthropology · 2013 · 2,893 citations
• Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible · American Political Science Review · 1992 · 1,444 citations
• The hydrosocial cycle: Defining and mobilizing a relational-dialectical approach to water · Geoforum · 2013 · 870 citations
• The Zimbabwe Bush Pump · Social Studies of Science · 2000 · 859 citations
• Think Practically and Look Locally: Language and Gender as Community-Based Practice · Annual Review of Anthropology · 1992 · 842 citations
• Environmentality · Current Anthropology · 2005 · 611 citations
• The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization, Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South · Antipode · 2007 · 558 citations
• PRESSURE: The PoliTechnics of Water Supply in Mumbai · Cultural Anthropology · 2011 · 540 citations
• Lively Infrastructure · Theory Culture & Society · 2014 · 513 citations

Most recent work

• GOVERNING THE CLOUD : Infrastructural Statecraft and the Political Ecology of Digital Expansion in Oregon · International Journal of Urban and Regional Research · 2026
• Reshaping State‐Led Agricultural Modernization in China: The Hydrosocial Reconfigurations of Small‐Scale Farmland Irrigation Infrastructures · Journal of Agrarian Change · 2026
• De-modernizing energy justice: Ivan Illich and the struggles for pluriversal territorialities in the Global South · World Development · 2026
• From theory to practice: evaluating civic participation in Naples’ remunicipalised water service · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2026
• Epistemically resistant, unruly and relational: Modelling groundwater in the Salar de Atacama (Chile) · Critique of Anthropology · 2026
• Neither infrastructural nor planetary: Urban corridor as an assemblage · Urban Studies · 2026
• “What is public anyway?”: The politics of urban transport in Shillong, India · Urban Studies · 2026
• How do you critique activists? Some reflections on doing environmentalism badly · Social & Cultural Geography · 2026
• Remunicipalisation and resistance to privatisation of local water services: lessons from Argentina · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2026
• The tensions in Bolivia’s remunicipalised public management of water and sanitation: from the protagonism of social movements to state management · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2026

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