Muehlebach, A., 2023. A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe. ISBN 9781478093770 (ebook Open Access ; paperback US$26.95).
(URL: https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-vital-frontier)
Jerry van den Berge
Independent Researcher; jerryvandenberge22@gmail.com
To cite this review: van den Berge, J. (2024). Review of “A Vital Frontier Water Insurgencies in Europe”, Duke University press, 2023, Water Alternatives, https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/boh/item/374-vital
Andrea Muehlebach takes us on a personal journey across Europe to side with social movements and water activists along three anti-privatization water struggles; starting in Italy, going to Ireland, then to Berlin and back to Italy. She ties the struggles fluidly together and shows how the three totally different struggles have one big common determinator: water is life! It is a common good that belongs to all of us and privatizing water is not just stealing it away from people, but dispossessing them from life-making in economic, social, cultural and political sense. She explores meticulously how the theft of water is embedded in capitalist society and has its roots in history, just as the social movements that fight for “their” water have their historical roots in society. The book reads as a thriller, holding the attention from the first to the last page of each chapter (each case). Muehlebach brings the reader so close to the activists that you can just feel what moves them to stand up against the legalized deprivation that they are faced with. A great example that shows that water cannot be reduced to a monetary value or economic good and a must read for all who are engaged in water governance and water justice.
