Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between people and waterscapes in an ethnographic analysis of Local Marine Authority Committees in QLD. The site of the LMAC meeting is one of confluence between different interests and is rich for unpacking the co-constructedness of water/human relationships.

Paper long abstract:

Water has always been crucial to human survival and development as a source of bodily sustenance but also as an organisational unit or conduit of self and place-making. Watersheds, confluences, and places of watery fecundity are as much constructed and constructing ideologies as they are physical places. These watery places are often represented as distinct, bordered areas or jurisdictions (on maps for instance) but are materially and figuratively intertwined and connected with the wider ecology and surrounding discourses. In contrast to viewing such landscapes as fluid and interconnected, management and protection bodies and authorities often try to delineate jurisdictional boundaries and bureaucratic systems that are at odds with this fluidity. In fact, these rigid structural boundaries and systems often serve to re-enforce power hegemonies even when seemingly trying to undo or disrupt them. For instance, community engagement in water and resource management is touted as a way for those who live in such communities to become part of the management process. However, it is all too easy for community engagement and consultation to become a performative process that mostly serves to re-make extant power relations. Viewing the human/environment relationship as a material process suggests the community engagement process may benefit from a more fluid approach where, rather than thinking about water, it may help to think like water.