The aim of my PhD project is to understand the state and non-state actors involved in urban water governance and the ways in which the formal and informal water sector compete, collaborate and merge to control urban water. Based in ethnographic fieldwork in Nairobi, Kenya, I examine the “practical” political economy of water governance focusing on the informal norms, practices and actors that shape the ways in which the water flows, but which may not be captured by formal policy or practice.