This chapter reviews the role of irrigation districts, city water utilities, and environmental groups in basin management. Examples from two river basins – Rio Grande and Euphrates–Tigris – illustrate vast differences in stakeholder participation. The authors recommend that all SERIDAS rivers pay increased attention to this option for better management. The four options for creating sub-basin water councils recommended for the Rio Grande provide useful guidance. Other models, reflecting different basin conditions, may emerge. Whatever model is selected, stakeholders should always organize to address the water agenda of their sub-basin. Doing so directly contributes to reaching and maintaining sustainability of the river as a whole.

Ogiermann’s chapter explores disagreements in naturally occurring conversations taking place between spouses in Polish homes. The disagreements under scrutiny arise while accomplishing everyday tasks and generally aim at achieving the best outcome for all members of the family. Yet the analyses demonstrate that the disagreements are treated as face-threatening. The study is based on video recordings, making it possible to include non-verbal aspects of the interaction in the analysis. Taking these aspects into account sheds new light on the disagreements, showing that they often form a background activity to the tasks being performed, which continue being executed as the disagreements evolve and impact on how they evolve. The analysis of the interactional data is complemented with interviews, which largely confirm the interpretations derived from the recordings, while also providing a broader perspective on how the disagreements and understandings of politeness shape, and are shaped by, the couples’ family lives.

In her study of Greek offers, Bella uses experimental data collection methods to compare the use of politeness in offers directed at friends and offers made by students to their professors. Bella uses open role plays to establish the formulations her participants deem appropriate in the two situations, and retrospective verbal interviews to provide information about the motivations for their choice of politeness strategies. In the Greek context, offers have been defined as positive politeness devices, enhancing solidarity and reaffirming relationships, in line with the classification of Greece as a positive politeness culture. Bella’s study, however, illustrates that offers vary significantly according to the relationship between the interlocutors, with offers in asymmetrical situations characterised by a preference for negative politeness. These differences are reflected not only in the amount of directness expressed, but also through the degree of insistence. This sequential feature of offers is further illustrated on the basis of a naturally occurring interaction that validates the experimental data, while showing that politeness is an interactional phenomenon.