Fed by desalination plants, the drinking fountains function as contemporary stand-ins to village wells and other communal water sources, and as a tokenistic remembrance of the past. As a whole, In Lieu of What Was considers the use of water as a political tool throughout the region; for example, its role in the draining of the marshlands of Southern Iraq, the conservation and management of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers across national borders, and the controlled retention of water from people and animals as a form of forced deportation.