Unbottling the Truth about Water: the Discursive Construction of Water as a «Strategic» Resource

This paper is a linguistic investigation into the discourse and narratives of water and water resource management. The increasing concern about water quality and water scarcity, associated with problems of access and denial for millions of people, has drawn water more frequently into discourses within the realms of economics, politics, as well as social, environmental and health issues. In such contexts, water joins oil and certain minerals as a ‘strategic’ resource, resulting in a variety of social actors and stakeholders competing to determine issues, priorities, and solutions related to the management of water.