CAREER: Moral Economies in Water Markets: Implications for Understanding Human Responses to Water Insecurity

到2040年，世界上一半的人口将生活在缺水的条件下。为了管理水不安全问题，许多社区将越来越需要依赖移动的、适应性强和分散的水基础设施，如私人售水，而不仅仅是集中的公共系统。因此，在未来几年，至关重要的是要了解如何设计基于市场的基础设施，以维护当地的水正义观念，并促进水权。这个CAREER项目将研究社区何时以及如何动员基于市场的道德经济，以他们认为公平和公正的方式管理水不安全。道德经济是一种规范性的经济制度，在这种制度中，共同的正义观念使个人有义务提供获得重要资源的机会。虽然科学家们已经证明了基于互惠的道德经济是人类对资源不安全的关键反应，但我们对人们何时以及如何使用基于市场的道德经济安排来管理当代资本主义背景下的水不安全状况知之甚少。在该项目的第一阶段，研究人员将从人种学的角度研究美国一个主要的水不安全热点地区的私人水销售，以了解以市场为基础的水道德经济是否以及何时出现。在第二阶段，研究人员将通过对全球六个地点基于市场的道德经济的跨文化研究（通过与NSF资助的家庭水不安全研究协调网络合作）来探索这些发现的普遍性。这两个阶段的研究将集中在三个水市场（非正式的交流，半正式的水拖运，正式的水零售店），以研究如何市场正规化，使或限制道德经济的水。在每个市场中，研究人员将研究如何社会距离，二元社会关系是强，弱，或不存在，使或限制道德经济的水。这项研究的结果将：有助于市场的社会基础的人类学知识;进一步了解人类如何应对市场经济中的资源不安全;推进跨学科奖学金的多标量的原因，后果和家庭水不安全的反应。该项目的资金还将支持开发一种新的研究学徒模式，该模式将研究的所有阶段与研究生和本科生教学相结合，以培养新一代基于团队的跨学科社会科学和社区的社会科学家。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Half of the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions by 2040. To manage water insecurity, many communities will increasingly need to rely on mobile, adaptable, and decentralized water infrastructures, such as private water vending, rather than on centralized public systems alone. In the coming years then, it will be crucial to understand how market-based infrastructures can be designed to uphold local notions of water justice and advance the Human Right to Water. This CAREER project will examine when and how communities mobilize market-based moral economies to manage water insecurity in ways they consider to be fair and just. Moral economies are normative economic institutions in which shared notions of justice obligate individuals to provide access to vital resources. While scientists have documented reciprocity-based moral economies as a key human response to resource insecurity, we have little understanding of when and how people may use market-based moral economic arrangements to manage water insecure conditions within contemporary capitalist contexts. In Phase 1 of the project, the researcher will ethnographically examine private water vending in a major U.S. water insecurity hotspot to understand if and when market-based moral economies for water arise. In Phase 2, the researcher will explore the generalizability of these findings through a cross-cultural study of market-based moral economies in six global sites (via collaboration with the NSF-funded Household Water Insecurity Research Coordination Network). Both phases of research will focus on three water markets (informal exchanges, semi-formal water hauling, and formal water retail stores) to examine how market formality enables or constrains moral economies for water. Within each market, the researcher will examine how social distance, dyadic social ties that are strong, weak, or absent, enables or constrains moral economies for water. Findings from this research will: contribute to anthropological knowledge of the social foundations of markets; further understand how humans respond to resource insecurity in market-based economies; advance interdisciplinary scholarship on the multi-scalar causes, consequences, and responses to household water insecurity. Funding for the project will also support the development of a novel research apprenticeship model that will integrate all phases of research with graduate and undergraduate teaching in order to train a new generation of social scientists in team-based interdisciplinary social science and community-based research methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.