Session Description: This session will address water resources as commodities, and is open to both domestic (U.S.) and international perspectives, from individual state adjudications to the more broadly neo-liberal development schemes now employed. The legal and rhetorical construction of property rights, specific to water use and ownership, has been sold as a model for Third World development schemes. And yet, many developed countries have struggled to implement their own juridical framework for water resources. In the United States, for example, some states are only now resolving conflicts over water access, seniority rights, and past legal frameworks. We invite geographers and like-minded scholars to a special session focusing on these topics. All perspectives are welcome, but we hope to have topical and regional diversity that is also sensitive to historical trajectories and differences. Especially of interest are those papers that might address one or more of the following dimensions:
• Social relations
• Environmental governance
• Juridical relationships
• Formal vs. customary access and rights
