Sociology Assignment on Struggle Around The World

Question

Task: In this sociology assignment, you will need to write a critical response papers (roughly -1000 words each) on any themes of your choice from the course. Please note that these papers are NOT supposed to be summaries of the readings. They are meant to be “critical” – meaning, they should have an argument based on critical engagement with the readings. To this end, you can present questions, rebuttals, syntheses of key ideas, or analysis of specific ideas from the readings.

Theme For The Paper: Struggle Around The World
Readings
Aiyer, A. (2007). The allure of the transnational: notes on some aspects of the political economy of water in India. Cultural Anthropology, 22(4), 640-658.
Bond, P. (2004). Water commodification and decommodification narratives: pricing and policy debates from Johannesburg to Kyoto to Cancun and back. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 15(1), 7-25.
Mohai, P. (2018). Environmental justice and the Flint water crisis. Michigan Sociological Review, 32, 1-41.

Answer

Over the last few decades, some of the countries have struggled to counter the issues regarding water resources all over the world. As evident in this sociology assignment, social activist and expertise from different field of environment have given their main priority to the privatization of water resources. As stated by Aiyer(2007), numerous discussions and struggles of oppositionregarding water privatization issue that has been termed as businessrobbery of water resources. As per the statement of Albiac Murillo (2017), the company like Coca-Cola, Suez have attentive on a variety of issues from privatization and amount extorting to bottling groundwater and environmental contamination. That means contamination of water and bottling groundwater has been termed out to be a nightmare for some of the companies. This study reflects some shades on the struggle for water rights around the world. The aim of this paper is forming a critical response on the theme ‘Struggle around the world’ founded on the appropriate arguments, presenting the questions, the idea synthesis and the analysis of the scholarly readings.

Subramanian (2019) argued that, the corporate regulator of water resources in each corner of the globe must be placed and investigated within a layout that is not constrained to neoliberal globalization and transitional corporations. He also suggests that the struggle around the world on water resources should be investigated with foremost priority as a part of the agriculture crisis. Apart from that, businesssector and governmentpolicies to privatize water along with the other goods and services, makes a shocking effect on farmers and the agriculture sector and provide new pathways for the reconfiguration of the struggles between rural and urban people in some of the orthodox countries around the world. Apart from that, privatization of water is also effective to reduce the waste of water. As a whole, it can be said that privatization of water resources still is an issue to solve. Overpricing on the water is also the most faced issue around the world. Most of the countries struggled to get fresh drinkable water. If anyhow they reach to it, but they are unable to drink it due to high pricing of water. A similar issue was faced by the people of southern Africa in early 2003. Bond (2004) opinedthat; water is a very essential requirement for every person to survive. He also said that government should take this matter with a high priority which enables the opportunity to provide drinkable water with fair pricing. A study conducted by Muller (2018) among the rural and urban people of South Africa regarding water pricing that most of the rural people suffered to drink fresh water. Due to the higher amount of arsenic present in tube well water, rural people havebeen affected by few diseases such as fluorosis, Minamata etc. That means, it is clear that every people necessary to have fresh drinkable water inside the house with low pricing. McDonald (2020) supported the overpricing segment and argued that the pricing of water was correct at that time but they don't have enough money to afford it. He also claimed that the people of South Africa were gone through some political dilemma with the government and that's the reason why they were trying to make a mark on the government by a false allegation. Companies who produce the mineral water set the standards as per their expenses during manufacturing such as bottles, purification agents etc. But this information has its limitation because it was based on the opinion of the people of southern Africa. Thus, it can be said that mineral water producing companies need to set their price after an assessment of the people of every country.

Climate change, rising sea levels and pollution also contributed towards the unfinished tasks of other struggles. Every country faces heat due to a massive increase in sea levels. As per the statement of Mohai (2018), this is a strategic failure of the government Because they have the power and policy. Despite having that, they are unable to force a law on that issue. That means, these are issues are hurting the globe badly. McCauley & Heffron, (2018) argued that the government doesn't need to tell all the time. It is the basic rule for the residents not to misuse any resources. They also made some remarkable statements on the residents of each country regarding pollution. for example- India is the country where most of the people through garbage's into lanes, ponds, rivers that make water pollution. on the other hand, the United States is the country that contributed to air pollution mostly. It helps to unsettle the climate. These are the issue will become more vulnerable in coming days. However, people need to act sensibly in this matter and government need to set environmental law to minimize it. Thus, it can be said that cooperation from both the residents and government of each country holds the key to overcome this struggle. On the other hand, flint a city in the US they faced a water crisis and it has become the most shocking example of environmental injustice. In the context of the United States. Banzhaf, Ma & Timmins (2019) stated that certain communities from the US are highly responsible for environmental contamination and health risk.Mohai (2018) crossed the previous statements and said that flint has been in the headline for colour discrimination issues not for contamination. additionally, Flint is mainly based on the black community and they have struggled to get water for colour discrimination. That means, it is an issue for them for a long time. Thus, it can be suggested that the flint community need to depend on the US government for fair treatment on water.

References
Aiyer, A. (2007). The allure of the transnational: notes on some aspects of the political economy of water in India. Cultural Anthropology, 22(4), 640-658.
Albiac Murillo, J. (2017). Review on the political economy of water reforms in agriculture.
Banzhaf, S., Ma, L., & Timmins, C. (2019). Environmental justice: The economics of race, place, and pollution. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 185-208.
Bond, P. (2004). Water commodification and decommodification narratives: pricing and policy debates from Johannesburg to Kyoto to Cancun and back. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 15(1), 7-25.
McCauley, D., & Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, 1-7. McDonald, D. A. (2020). Innovation and new public water. Sociology assignment Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 23(1), 67-82.
Mohai, P. (2018). Environmental justice and the Flint water crisis. Michigan Sociological Review, 32, 1-41.
Muller, M. (2018). Developmental states, the role of experts and Cape Town's water crisis. New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, 2018(69), 13-19.
Subramanian, K. (2019). The Political Economy Of Water. World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, 23(2), 116-125.