{"id":2288,"date":"2015-10-23T11:15:38","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T10:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/charisma.local\/charisma2023\/char1smaSSL\/?post_type=consumption&p=2288"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:45:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T22:45:46","slug":"plastic-water-new-book-by-hawkins-potter-and-race","status":"publish","type":"consumption","link":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/consumption\/plastic-water-new-book-by-hawkins-potter-and-race","title":{"rendered":"‘Plastic Water’ – new book by Hawkins, Potter and Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Plastic Water:\u00a0The Social and Material Life of Bottled Water’ has just been published by MIT Press. Looks brilliant.. here follows the publisher blurb – more info on the book here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

How did branded bottles of water insinuate themselves into our daily lives? Why did water become an economic good\u2014no longer a common resource but a commercial product, in industry parlance a \u201cfast moving consumer good,\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2014the ways in which this habit enacts new relations and meanings that may interfere with other drinking water practices.<\/p>\n

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 \u201chydration science\u201d 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 \u201csay no\u201d to the bottle and promote the consumption of tap water in Canada, the United States, and Australia.<\/p>\n

Endorsements<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA delightful exposition of the multiplicity of a mundane object. The authors demonstrate bottled water in all its variation, as an entity which enacts diverse global, political, commercial, environmental, and ethical contexts. Drinking water can never be the same again!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Steve Woolgar, Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Link\u00f6ping University and Oxford University; coauthor of Mundane Governance: Ontology and Accountability<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBy showing how various packaging innovations manage to reorient new flows of water and issues, Plastic Water deeply renews our understanding of markets and politics: the authors\u2019 fascinating study of the worldwide dynamics of bottled water brilliantly evidences that some of the most serious concerns rest less on classic institutional and ideological games than on the mundane material life where they take their source. As such, this book is one of the most welcome contributions to contemporary economic sociology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Franck Cochoy, Professor of Sociology, University Toulouse Jean-Jaur\u00e8s\/CERTOP, France<\/em><\/p>\n

\"plastic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News on ‘Plastic Water’ – a new book by Gay Hawkins, Emily Potter and Kane Race which looks at how exactly branded bottles of water have insinuated themselves into our daily lives Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1194,1193,723,1192,730,1191],"class_list":["post-2288","consumption","type-consumption","status-publish","hentry","category-announcements","tag-bottled-water","tag-emily-potter","tag-gay-hawkins","tag-kane-race","tag-material-politics","tag-water"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/consumption\/2288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/consumption"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/consumption"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/consumption\/2288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2942,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/consumption\/2288\/revisions\/2942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.journalofculturaleconomy.org\/charisma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}