From oceans and rivers to lagoons, billabongs and estuaries, this volume draws on water's many formations in debating human relationships as a major source of life and a major factor in contemporary politics. It identifies different discursive possibilities for thinking about water in theory and in practice.

It presents those discourses that seem most useful in addressing the multiple crises that the region is facing and thus will be of interest to scholars of Asian studies, geography, the environment and cultural studies.