Household water security is commonly defined in terms of water access and potability. However, a focus on these physical qualities fails to consider the sociopolitical dynamics embedded in water-related inequalities. As a consequence, politics become limited to ensuring regional water supply rather than addressing the ways exclusion to water reflects social disparities. This dissertation builds on relational water-security frameworks by analyzing embodiment—that is, perceiving and being in the world through the body—across disciplines to examine the particular ways through which the lived experience of water insecurity, water stocks, and water flows emerge through hydrosocial (intertwined sociopolitical, economic, technological, and ecological) relations. The chapters examine the embodiment of hydrosocial relationships across the semi-arid region of Ceará, Northeast Brazil (NEB), where conflicts related to equitable access to quality water are a microcosm of the challenges faced in water-limited regions worldwide. First, I explore the embodiment of Northeast Brazilian culture, politics, and climate patterns in two experimental performance pieces by contemporary Cearense artists. Highlighting the performance of water’s presence and absence, I demonstrate how performance is apt to holistically critique chronic water inequities that encompass the diverse meanings and values of water across NEB. Then, I apply embodiment to hydrology through the assessment of evaporation rates from two multi-use reservoirs in Quixeramobim, Ceará. Colleagues and I developed a method to measure open water evaporation using floating minipans. Finally, I extend the concept of hydraulic citizenship—defined as the ability of residents to be recognized through legitimate water services—to examine the embodiment of particular hydrosociological relations through public cistern programs and the cisterns themselves. The hydraulic citizenship of the rural beneficiaries ebbs and flows across the program’s infrastructure lifecycle. Water-related challenges throughout Ceará will continue to evolve due to intertwining dynamics of climate change, policy priorities, water infrastructure, social inequalities, and water values. Greater attention to the recursive relationships between these dynamics and the lived experience of water insecurity of traditionally marginalized groups is essential to create more just water futures.
