Virtual water, H2O and the de-socialisation of water—a brief anthropological journey

The concept of virtual water has been crucial in reintroducing the elements of water use and ‘productivity’ into the understanding of the economic and political aspects of contemporary processes and in making visible dynamics of water incorporated in our daily life, food and objects. In water use and meanings today another aspect remains often invisible: the cultural and social dynamics in which water is embedded and the patterns of common that cultures have developed with water, the most relational resource. The study of the relations between water and cultures highlights the relevance in understanding the complexity of commons as communal management systems of natural resources: a complex whole not to be idealised, but as historical institutions, cultural, productive and moral systems, technical and symbolic, and central to the use and, especially, the sharing of water.