Abstract
The television sci-fi drama, ‘The Expanse’, based on the novels written by James S. A. Corey, depicts a future solar system where the dwarf planet ‘Ceres’ provides diminishing sources of fresh water for competing intergalactic colonies. In such worlds, 200 years hence, water has become more than a commodity for monetary exchange: it is now a precious, finite, politicized and respected ingredient for human survival. Corey describes the activities of ‘water smugglers’, who seek their fortunes from dealing in this rare resource, and paints a picture of the political and diplomatic value of fresh water where societies have come to realize its intrinsic life-giving qualities; those who see it merely as a commodity are represented as criminals and outcasts. Corey thereby represents the modern day ‘water buccaneers’—the corporate entities that exploit and profit from fresh water—as the pariahs of the future.
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Notes
- 1.
Neither is Pandorum (2009), the German science fiction thriller, which opens with text indicating that in the year 2174, with the world’s population above 24 billion, the battle for Earth’s limited resources has reached its boiling point and the spacecraft Elysium—a 60,000-person sleeper ship—has been launched on a 123-year voyage to the Earth-like planet of Tanis (see Brisman 2015).
- 2.
We would also note that, ironically, the need for resistance to environmental harm does not come without creating its own environmental risk. North Dakota officials warned that trash at the camps of the protestors of the DAPL could ‘pose an ecological threat if it were washed downstream by flooding’ (Smith and Blinder 2017: A12).
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Brisman, A., McClanahan, B., South, N., Walters, R. (2018). Conclusion. In: Water, Crime and Security in the Twenty-First Century. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52986-2_8
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