Making water into a political material: the case of PET bottles I want to think about how the ubi... more Making water into a political material: the case of PET bottles I want to think about how the ubiquitous commodity`bottled water' makes water into a political material. This is one of the driving questions of Plastic Water, a book I am currently writing with two colleagues Emily Potter and Kane Race. In approaching this question there are already a lot of answers. The bottling of water in single-serve disposable containers has generated significant economic effects in the form of new markets and profits for beverage companies and, in some places, significant political effects in the form of vigorous contestation of these markets and their impacts on natural resources and public water provision (cf Clarke, 2008). However, the challenge for our project is to understand this economy^politics relation beyond the logics of critique or corporate intentionality. Unlike the activist literature on bottled water, our concern is not so much with the determining role of beverage companies in producing an exploitative industry and problematic commodity. Rather, it is with the ways in which plastic PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles and water have established relations of reciprocal influence or distinct alliances that have worked to mutually enhance their performative agency and capacities: economic, political, and more.
ABSTRACT q This paper explores the ethical turn in new and old television formats. From docusoaps... more ABSTRACT q This paper explores the ethical turn in new and old television formats. From docusoaps to tabloid talk to lifestyle shows, examinations of ways to live are now a major source of content and conflict. Television is now deeply implicated in shaping our ethical sensibilities. This ...
How did branded bottles of water insinuate themselves into our daily lives? Why did water become ... more How did branded bottles of water insinuate themselves into our daily lives? Why did water become an economic good—no longer a common resource but a commercial product, in industry parlance a “fast moving consumer good,” or FMCG? Plastic Water examines the processes behind this transformation. It goes beyond the usual political and environmental critiques of bottled water to investigate its multiplicity, examining a bottle of water’s simultaneous existence as, among other things, a product, personal health resource, object of boycotts, and part of accumulating waste matter. Throughout, the book focuses on the ontological dimensions of drinking bottled water—the ways in which this habit enacts new relations and meanings that may interfere with other drinking water practices.
The book considers the assemblage and emergence of a mass market for water, from the invention of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle in 1973 to the development of “hydration science” that accompanied the rise of jogging in the United States. It looks at what bottles do in the world, tracing drinking and disposal practices in three Asian cities with unreliable access to safe water: Bangkok, Chennai, and Hanoi. And it considers the possibility of ethical drinking, examining campaigns to “say no” to the bottle and promote the consumption of tap water in Canada, the United States, and Australia.
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Papers by Gay Hawkins
Books by Gay Hawkins
The book considers the assemblage and emergence of a mass market for water, from the invention of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle in 1973 to the development of “hydration science” that accompanied the rise of jogging in the United States. It looks at what bottles do in the world, tracing drinking and disposal practices in three Asian cities with unreliable access to safe water: Bangkok, Chennai, and Hanoi. And it considers the possibility of ethical drinking, examining campaigns to “say no” to the bottle and promote the consumption of tap water in Canada, the United States, and Australia.