The study sought to understand conflict and cooperation in local water governance. By situating water across multiple temporal and spatial scales, this research opens up new avenues to investigate conceptual and empirical links between water, conflict and cooperation therefore underscoring the complexity and diversity of ways that water is enrolled in different sites and modes of conflict and cooperation across scales. It draws upon Bourdieu's theory of capitals, habitus and field. Using Bourdieu, the study draws attention to a variety of different forms of capital serving as resources that actors trade on in negotiations. It also demonstrates the connection between habitus and field, and how agents deploy various capitals to navigate the field.