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Abstract Over the past two decades, scholars have invoked E. P. Thompson's and James Scott's concept of a “moral economy” to explain how people mobilize notions of justice to make claims to water. We draw together 20 years of literature to assess the state‐of‐the‐art present in research on moral economies for water. We trace the historical foundations of the moral economies concept and its relevance to water; define the three basic components of a moral economy for water—(1) shared understandings of justice, (2) normative economic practices, (3) social pressure mechanisms—and provide examples of how they manifest globally. We then discuss how moral economies for water can cycle through four basic states—balanced struggle, intensified reaction, mass revolt, and collapse and dissolution—at different scales. We also explore the implications of the moral economies framework for key areas of current research on water: water sharing, water commons, water markets, and biocultural outcomes, and discuss the ways in which the moral economies framework dovetails with recent advances in water research, especially the economics of water and development. We argue that the moral economies framework is a powerful explanatory tool for understanding the relationships between ideas of water justice, economic behaviors, and mechanisms of social enforcement that complements other methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives. We envision moral economies for water as a field that can facilitate a range of norm‐based analyses of economic behavior and water justice, including across scales—from local to global—and in broad, integrative, multiscalar, and cross‐disciplinary ways. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Water GovernanceHuman Water > Value of WaterHuman Water > Rights to Water
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Keeping it in the family: The moral economy of Suboxone in southwest Virginia
Opioid agonist medications, such as the buprenorphine-based Suboxone, are becoming increasingly important tools for caring for people with opioid use disorders. Yet, whether at the level of the family, the clinic, or pharmaceutical companies, the circulation of Suboxone can involve forms of concealment, secrecy, and deceit, even as it is used to provide a vital form of care. In exploring the moral economies that shape the licit and illicit circulation of Suboxone in southwest Virginia, we aim to unpack the logics of obligation, care, and secrecy that emerge within a family network caught in a set of sociopolitical, economic, and therapeutic conditions. In exploring how Suboxone circulates at these different scales—in families, in clinics, and in the global pharmaceutical economy—this article shows how secrets lubricate the social, economic, and moral mechanisms through which relationships are sustained and substances circulate. [moral economy, secrecy, substance use, care, rural United States]
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- Award ID(s):
- 1920871
- PAR ID:
- 10377872
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Ethnologist
- ISSN:
- 0094-0496
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13105
