Constructing Comparability: Climate Change Adaptation and the Transnational Settler Modularity of Desalination

Regarding technology, “modularity” typically refers to an apparatus’ interchangeability, reproducibility, or transposability, i.e., “plug and play” applications. However, critical scholars contend that modularity is laborious and aspirational, not to be taken for granted. Where promoters of modularity often focus on material dimensions of technology, this article intervenes in these debates by revealing the necessary practical and discursive work required. We problematize desalination's transnational modularity through an analysis of archival and ethnographic research of comparative connections between California and Israel. We argue desalination emerged from Israel's project to restructure environmental, political, and economic risks with(in) Palestine. Through naturalizing colonization and extraction, desalination's applicability to places such as California is made to appear self-evident. We demonstrate this process by interrogating three common arguments used to craft comparability between California and Israel: (1) desalination overcomes “natural” scarcity; (2) desalination produces geopolitical cooperation through “abundance”; and (3) desalination displays superior techno-managerial expertise. In so doing, we contribute to science and technology studies and critical environmental justice studies by illustrating how “adaptations” can emerge from settler-colonial projects. Founded on socionatural exploitation and domination, settler-colonial projects prove productive of modular capitalist endeavors and ongoing practices of constructing comparisons.