Ivan Illich and Jamie Linton have both argued that our current technological relation to water constitutes an abstraction. Developing this insight in the context of phenomenology, I draw on Michel Haar's French translation of Gestell—the essence of technology, according to Heidegger—as ‘consommation’ (consumption), to put forward a criticism of the abstract status of water in postindustrial, consumer societies. I propose in its place a concrete, phenomenological approach, according to which a policy of ‘letting water appear’ can not only play a significant role in the unconcealment of poiēsis— Heidegger's response to the question concerning technology—but also form the basis of a renewed urban water policy. Four key examples of letting water appear are examined: Daylighting urban rivers and streams; harvesting local rain and ground water; treating wastewater on-site using ‘living machines’; and attuning demand to local water flows. I conclude by suggesting that urban water policy cannot be reduced to integrated water resource management, for the transition to sustainability also requires a fuller understanding of the phenomenological issue of ‘letting appear’ (poiēsis).
BaudrillardJ, 1970La Société de Consommation (Éditions Denoël, Paris)
6.
BellD, 1973The Coming of Postindustrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (Basic Books, New York)
7.
BrownP, 2007Water Resources and Land Use: Creating Sustainable Cities of the FutureThomas R Camp Lecture, Boston Society of Engineers, Boston, MA, 4 December
8.
CaseyE, 1997The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
9.
De BeisteguiM, 2005The New Heidegger (Continuum, London)
10.
DicksH, 2011, “The self-poetizing earth: Heidegger, Santiago theory, and Gaia theory”Environmental Philosophy841–61
11.
FosterJ B, 2000Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature (Monthly Review Press, New York)
12.
FoucaultM, 1984, “Nietzsche, genealogy, history”, in The Foucault Reader Ed. RabinowP, (Pantheon, New York) pp 76–100
13.
HaarM, 1985Le Chant de la Terre (Éditions de l'Herne, Paris)
14.
HeideggerM, 1966Discourse on Thinking (Harper Row, New York)
15.
HeideggerM, 1971On the Way to Language (Harper Row, New York)
16.
HeideggerM, 1993a, “The question concerning technology”, in Basic Writings Ed. KrellD F, (Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon) pp 311–341
17.
HeideggerM, 1993b, “Overcoming metaphysics”, in The Heidegger Controversy Ed. WolinR, (MIT, Cambridge, MA) pp 67–90
18.
HeideggerM, 1995Being and Time (Blackwell, Oxford)
19.
HeideggerM, 1998a, “On the essence and concept of Physis in Aristotle's Physics B, 1”, in Pathmarks Ed. McNeillW, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 183–230
20.
HeideggerM, 1998b, “Postscript to ‘What is Metaphysics?’”, in Pathmarks Ed. McNeillW, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 231–238
21.
HeideggerM, 2000Introduction to Metaphysics (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
22.
HeideggerM, 2003Four Seminars (Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, IN)
23.
IllichI, 1974Medical Nemesis (Calder and Boyars, London)
24.
IllichI, 1986H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness (Marion Boyars, London)
25.
KalaoraB, 2001, “De l'eau sensible à OH2”, paper presented at the International Symposium ‘Origins and History of Hydrology’, Dijon, France, 9–11 May, http://hydrologie.org/ACT/OH2/actes/28kalaora.pdf
26.
KrauseFStrangV, 2013, “Special issue: Living water”Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, Ecology17 (2)
27.
LatourB, 1991Nous n'avons jamais été modernes (Editions la Découverte, Paris)
LintonJ, 2010What is Water? The History of a Modern Abstraction (UBC Press, Vancouver)
30.
MalpasJ, 2008Heidegger's Topology: Being, Place, World (MIT, Cambridge, MA)
31.
MarsalekJJiménez-CisnerosBKaramouzMMalmquistPGoldenfumJChocatB, 2008Urban Water Cycle Processes and Interactions (UNESCO, Paris)
32.
MaturanaHVarelaF, 1980Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (D Reidel, Dordrecht)
33.
MingersJ, 1995Self-producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis (Plenum, New York)
34.
du TravailMinistèrede l'Emploi, et de la Santé, 2012Abandons de Captages Utilisés pour la Production d'Eau destinée à la Consommation Humainehttp://www.sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/bil0212.pdf
35.
MorinE, 1977La Méthode: Tome 1, la Nature de la Nature (Éditions du Seuil, Paris)
36.
MorinE, 1997Amour, Poésie, Sagesse (Éditions du Seuil, Paris)
37.
NeyratF, 2008L'indemne: Heidegger et la Destruction du Monde (Sens and Tonka, Paris)
38.
NovotnyVBrownP, 2007Cities of the Future: Towards Integrated Sustainable Water and Landscape Management (IWA, London)
39.
RifkinJ, 2011The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, The Economy, and The World (Palgrave Macmillan, New York)
40.
RoseM, 2012, “Dwelling as marking and claiming”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space30757–771
41.
StrangV, 2004The Meaning of Water (Berg, Oxford)
42.
TantorL, 2008, “Une histoire d'eau et de démocratie: La Bièvre á ciel ouvert dans Fresnes”, in Les jeux de l'eau: Miroirs franco-québecois Ed. AubryH, (La Dispute, Paris) pp 199–209
43.
TirloniV, 2010, “Le Gestell heideggérien est-il un dispositif ?”, in Du Gestell au Dispositif: Comment la technicisation encadre notre existence Ed. TirloniV, (Elkuoses, Paris) pp 5–23
44.
ToddN JToddJ, 1993From Ecocities to Living Machines: Principles of Ecological Design (North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA)
45.
YoungJ, 2002Heidegger's Later Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
