In this thesis I enact an interdisciplinary investigation into water's multiplicity of social-ecological values. I seek to open-up, and represent, different intrinsic, symbolic, and place-based values embedded in water; values that are in addition to the material characteristics of the substance that are often limited to quantified, and often economic, expressions. I do this in the context of the research's empirical site, the southern African nation of Malawi. Herein my central research

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... n is: 'What are different values of water in Malawi, and how can they be represented?'. I draw on, and develop, the concept of dialogics from its application in social and environmental accounting to consider water in broad social-ecological terms. I furthermore apply theoretical insights of assemblage, drawing on interdisciplinary influences including cultural and ecological anthropology, political ecology, and the arts to conceptualise and represent my evidence. I employ autoethnographic methodology and methods to elucidate my encounters with water, centred around the performative practice of water walks undertaken in Malawi. My methodological orientation and practices illustrate that water has a multiplicity of social, cultural, political, cosmological, and symbolic values in addition to its material uses that are conventionally represented in quantified and economic terms. These values are locally embedded in place, emerge from historical and spatial influences, and are iteratively linked to regional and global social systems (such as land use and climate). These entanglements collectively shape and determine ways people relate to, and are affected by, water. My research contributes to social and environmental accounting and interdisciplinary water studies literature through the exploration of its methodological orientation, and subsequent application of theoretical insights, to frame and represent evidence of water relations in social-ecological assemblages. It has a social/practical contribution by providing empirical insights of water relations in Malawi, developed through its holistic social-ecological and place-based research approach. This thesis, and the journey that it has involved, has been a gradual accumulation of insights, knowledge, inspiration, and support from many people I have encountered along the way. It includes individuals that I have met directly, and indirectly, from undertaking this researchas well as relationships that I carried into it along with me. While it is not possible for me to acknowledge each of these people separatelythere are too many -I simply wish to thank all of them for what they have given to me throughout this. There are fragments, threads and traces of knowledge and support absorbed into this body of work that comes from each, and all, of them. I deeply appreciate all of those. Thank-you to my supervisors, Doctor Andrea B. Coulson, and Professor Robert Kalin. They have stuck with me on this sometimes wandering journey, guiding me with their knowledge and care, and with a patience that has allowed me the freedom to take this meandering course.