The modern infrastructure ideal of universal, uniform, networked infrastructure has been challenged across the Global North and South. We therefore observe a growing set of concerns across the North and South about what a more resilient and socially inclusive way of providing basic water infrastructure might entail. A set of transformative processes that vary globally are set in motion that are more about embracing diversity in infrastructure that has been articulated elsewhere as  ‘heterogeneous infrastructure configurations’ (Lawhon et al. 2018). This heterogeneity is also evident in narratives such as ‘working with nature’, which seek to bring into the discussion of infrastructure a different way of thinking about environmental risk and uncertainty. Such narratives may draw attention to the importance of socio-natures that were previously not articulated in water infrastructures. Most of these narratives however have been articulated in Northern contexts and in relation to formal infrastructure. In this paper, we seek to lay out a theoretical framework that brings socio-nature and water infrastructure in conversation with global south literature, science technology studies and urban political ecology. Importantly, we seek to develop a framework that focuses on the importance of heterogeneity as well as political and power related implications of narratives of socio-nature.