Human rights

Counterpoint

Ecology

Biology

Economic system

Indigenous

Pedagogy

Neoliberalism (international relations)

Economics

Market economy

Environmental governance

Conceptual framework

Corporate governance

Commons

Commodity

Globalization

Management

Political science

Political economy

Sociology

Social science

Antipode

Abstract: In response to the growth of private sector involvement in water supply management globally, anti-privatization campaigns for a human right to water have emerged in recent years. Simultaneously, alter-globalization activists have promoted alternative water governance models through North-South red-green alliances between organized labour, environmental groups, women's groups, and indigenous groups. In this paper, I explore these distinct (albeit overlapping) responses to water privatization. I first present a generic conceptual model of market environmentalist reforms, and explore the contribution of this framework to debates over ‘neoliberalizing nature’. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of anti-privatization activism to elucidate the limitations of the human right to water as a conceptual counterpoint to privatization, and as an activist strategy. In contrast, I argue that alter-globalization strategies—centred on concepts of the commons—are more conceptually coherent, and also more successful as activist strategies. The paper concludes with a reiteration of the need for greater conceptual precision in our analyses of neoliberalization, for both academics and activists.

The "Commons" Versus the "Commodity": Alter-globalization, Anti-privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South