Abstract
In this paper, I seek to gain an understanding of the power that water meters are able to acquire in regulating the daily rhythms of life in the South African city of Durban. In doing so, I put Georg Lukacs's writings on reification to work. Lukdes's thecirisation of the phenomenon of reification captures the twin processes of encroaching formal rationalisation and commodity fetishism. Charting the history of the introduction of water meters and the rise in power of associated infrastructures, I seek to put a historical geographical materialist imagination to work. Thus, I develop a relational ontology of the urban waterscape before seeking to identify lines of struggle that might challenge the dictatorship of the water meter and move towards radically democratic technologies for a more equitable distribution of water.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1023-1045 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Antipode: a radical journal of geography |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2006 |
