Living with Water in a Modern World: an Analysis of Water Relationships in Two Globally Different Rural Areas

This paper investigates how embodied emotions influence access, allocation, and use of water among farmers experiencing droughts. The paper engages with the hydrosocial cycle and emotional geographies to understand how power dynamics and emotions shape nature-society relations. Case studies of droughts in western Rajasthan, India and central Arizona, United States were used to highlight how social and political factors play out through embodied emotions with access, allocation, and use of water. Peer reviewed secondary materials were used for the overall qualitative literature analysis. While, a qualitative thematic analysis on existing theoretical and empirical literature was used to code how emotions influenced the way water was accessed, allocated, and used during these particular drought periods. My findings suggest that embodied emotions with water are considered more in western Rajasthan’s decision making processes than central Arizona’s. Based on this research a clear gap in the hydrosocial cycle has been identified, which outlines the missing element of embodied emotions with water. This calls for a rethinking of the hydrosocial cycle that extends beyond social and political factors but also considers embodied emotions in nature-society relations