Big water, everyday water : a sociotechnical perspective

While this paper's general concerns are with the contributions cultural approaches might make to understanding and helping find solutions to a 'water crisis', its specific goals are more modest. Close to its original form as a talk, it is an excursion to map selected features in a field worthy of further investigation and future interventions by cultural researchers. The next section briefly outlines (after Shove, 2003) a sociotechnical perspective on relations between users, technologies and large systems. There follows a discussion of the sociotechnical system here called Big Water, and how domestic users get blamed for water practices the system encourages and services. The final section examines how water restrictions are leading some users into small-scale heroics to resist the 'saver-unfriendliness' ofstandard domestic water fittings in efforts to recapture water for their gardens.