[Despite a constitutional right to water, challenges remain to achieving sustainable
access tofor access to sufficient water for people in South Africa. This article
considers the degree to which current legal and institutional provisions , understood
within a paradigm of water commodification, perpetuate and embed approaches to
water access, which are antithetical to genuinely eco-socio-sustainable water access.
Water in South Africa has largely been re-cast as a commodity, exposed to market
rules, proving problematic for many and giving rise to a variety ofvarious responses,
including litigation. But Iin the seminal case of Mazibuko the Constitutional Court
failed to provide robust protection or to adequately enunciate a substantive core to
the right to water, providing. Such failure of “rights talk” has provided impetus for the
formation of “commons” strategies for water allocation. Indeed “commoning” is
beginning to represent not only an emerging conceptual strand in urban resource
allocation, but also a potentially dynamic, contemporary, eco-sensitive, socio-cultural
phenomenon, striving towardsdriving innovative, interactive and inclusive forms of
planning and social engagement. Against the backdrop of unequal water access,
commoning offers glimpses of an empowering and enfranchising subaltern paradigm.