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- Convenors:
-
Heather OLeary
(Washington University in St Louis)
Soumendra Patnaik (University of Delhi)
Sarah Dickson (McMaster University)
- Stream:
- Living landscapes: Anthropocene/Paysages vivants: Anthropocène
- Location:
- MRT 252
- Start time:
- 3 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
The limits and opportunities of interdisciplinary collaboration in broader political ecologies are examined through the situated, multi-species, multi-scalar, interdisciplinary power and politics of water governance and management.
Long Abstract:
In 2016, the World Economic Forum calculated the impact of water crisis to be nearly equal to the global risk impacts posed by weapons of mass destruction. Since 2012, water crisis has been a top five global risk—casualties from every continent are mounting as a result from floods, droughts, sea-level rise, extraction, pollution and deregulation. The World Resources Institute estimates this trend to continue with 33 nations reaching extremely high water stress by 2040. As such, water governance and management have become increasingly contentious. Water issues surpass political boundaries and acquire strategic significance spurring multiple forms of violent human conflict and ecological catastrophe. Even within national, regional and community boundaries, social conflicts over water are enmeshed with asymmetrical relations among situated agents, uneven geographies and imbricated materialities.
Water crisis impacts are broad and multifold, affecting far more than social and material realities in "closed-system" watersheds. We invite papers to examine the multi-scalar, interdisciplinary power and politics of water governance and water management covering the extensive impacts of water crisis both direct and diffuse. Anthropological and social science data yield myriad forms of deep case studies of water crisis—from the trans-corporeal, intersectional, interspecies perspectives to the systemic networking of structural, materialist and Anthropocene research. In documenting and theorizing socio-environmental politics of water crisis, anthropologists and social scientists are able to mitigate the impacts when in conversation with water scientists, engineers and policy-makers. As such, we also invite papers that explore the limits and opportunities of interdisciplinary collaboration in broader hydrological political ecologies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Emerging water stewardship initiatives forming around the Ottawa River in Canada's National Capital Region are explored in this research. The ways that stewardship of the river is constituted by a collective of the human and non-human is considered with a focus on the worlding capacity of water.
Paper long abstract:
Flowing directly behind the political center of Canada, the Ottawa River is the invaluable source of not only potable water for residents of the National Capital Region, but also aesthetic prestige, industrial sustenance and recreational mediation. Situated within un-ceded Algonquin territory, the river divides two provinces and is governed by multiple political bureaucracies, which all take different institutional approaches to stewarding river. Some say the river is healthier than it once was, but emerging Anthropocene threats to the water like microplastics pollution, neocolonial developments transforming sacred First Nations land and low water levels during record breaking summer heat are inspiring new forms of stewardship. Based on recent fieldwork, this paper describes how localized confluences of people, institutions, technologies and non-human entities are configuring new approaches to water stewardship within the Ottawa River watershed. Beginning from the work of the Ottawa Riverkeeper's Riverwatcher monitoring program, I explore how stewardship of the river is also accomplished by First Nations and allied settler colonial activist resistance to condo development on a section of river deemed as sacred by the Algonquin. These initiatives and others form a human ecology that stewards the river, one which includes non-human actors like web-based technologies and the force of the water itself. I will consider how these emerging confluences of water stewardship practices particular to Canada's national capital are representative of the kinds of Earth Stewardship Anthropocene scholars say is necessary to respond to the rapidly changing water worlds we all live in.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on fieldwork following flooding in Thailand, this paper examines how scale-making practices become politically relevant in Thai social and material ecologies of water. I demonstrate that scales are discursive strategies for water governance with consequences for our hydrological futures.
Paper long abstract:
As water crises and water demands intensify, water has become a central concern for governance at local, regional, national, and international scales. While water and water crises are multi-scalar, the scales through which we understand water's value are naturalized, giving only particular kinds of responses to water crises leverage and legitimacy. Drawing on fieldwork following unprecedented flooding in Thailand, this paper examines how scale-making practices become politically relevant in Thai social and material ecologies of water. In 2011, unexpected rainfalls caused flooding across much of Thailand and mobilized forms of technological, scientific, and political expertise to legislate recovery measures and simultaneously constitute Thailand's rivers at varied scales. Specifically, the state agenda proposes dams to rationalize water at the scale of the entire Chao Phraya basin while situated communities counter with smaller, local-scale initiatives to manage floods and droughts with less disruption to social and ecological systems. Tensions rise from these different designs on water, reinforcing asymmetrical power relations and reifying incommensurable scales for understanding and engaging Thai waterscapes. Tracing the social and material conditions of these scale-making projects, this paper queries how varied scales are produced through water governance and how these scales broadly impact hydrological political ecologies. Contributing to a growing discourse that analyzes scale as both political and a process rather than a set of natural, objective spatial relations, I argue that scales are discursive strategies for water governance with substantive consequences on human relations with water and our hydrological futures.
Paper short abstract:
Corporate Social Responsibility in India is seeing a number of initiatives on water in collaborative partnerships. The paper seeks to understand these endeavors in a comparative framework (national & international) reflecting on alternate social implications with the aim to inform policy decisions.
Paper long abstract:
Corporates in India have joined hands with the developmental goals in the country, under its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) requirements. A number of initiatives on water and sanitation are finding their genesis in collaborative partnerships between the Government, Non-Government Organisation and the Corporates. However, it is feared that corporates are essentially proficient in the delegating economic value to most purposes, and might not be able to understand the value-system of the community they operate in, thus relegating development rather than propagating it (Blowfield 2005). The corporate intervention might actually lead to commodification of a resource that belongs to the people by right. In addition to this, there is often a stark political and economic power distinction in favor of the corporate, and socially responsible activities can obscure deeper contradictions and power relations which unevenly benefit corporations, while anaesthetizing citizens who might otherwise demand change (Kuhn and Deetz, 2008). Corporate Social Responsibility in India has seen a number of initiatives on water in collaborative partnerships.The paper seeks to understand these programmes in a comparative framework at both the national and international level. The attempt is to reflect on policy by drawing attention to the possible alternate social implications that these programmes might have.
Paper short abstract:
The present paper aims to explore the management of water resources through existing institutional structure by the indigenous community of Terai region in the state of Uttrakhand on Indo Nepal border.
Paper long abstract:
The present paper aims to explore the management of water resources through existing institutional structure by the indigenous community of Terai region in the state of Uttrakhand on Indo Nepal border. The Tharu is an indigenous community well known for water management in traditional agricultural practices. Traditional water management had constituted an important component of ethnoecology and Indigenous Knowledge among the Tharu. This is argued here that the environmental changes which have been caused due to mining, tourism, industrial and short sighted development initiatives have been proved detrimental to the existing system of management , governance and preservation of water. By using an ethnographic approach the paper tries to explore how the traditional agricultural practices which had been in harmony with the existing water management is being at stake because of ecological imbalance caused by so called development projects. They have serious consequences not only for agriculture, irrigation but also for productivity eventually affecting the sustainability of development practices.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores a policy framework that builds a synergy between traditional management of communities' resources and upcoming challenges due to short sighted development and ecomonic ventures with reference to water conservation in India's North Eastern States.
Paper long abstract:
The North east region in India comprises one of the most culturally and genetically diverse population in the country divided in 8 states. The region is defined by its community based institutions that command, control and define its resource ownership and use. The region is endowed with plentiful water resources (among others) and has recently been embroiled in a lot of environmental conflicts and controversies. The construction of dams for power generation, the division of states and division within states of water resources as well as the legal and constitutional structures imposed upon the use of water in the region come in direct conflict with the traditional institutions and traditional knowledge that has governed water over centuaries. Coupled with this, cultural and village tourism necessitated the building of modern infrastructure that led to diverson of the traditional water resources creating tension between different stakeholders. The Lepcha protest in Skkim aganinst the dam on the Teesta river, the Subansiri protests in Assam and the rising problem of water stress in areas that have traditionally been amoung the wettest in the world, are just the tips of the iceberg that is waiting to be explored. The environmental characterstics of the region are captured well in its socio-cultural complexity and any plan to use the region's resources needs to be considerate of these.
Paper short abstract:
Of late, Indian cooperative federalism has started spanning towards competitive federalism. This paper purports to examine the impact of this changing paradigm on interstate river water conflict management in India
Paper long abstract:
Water paucity engages many nations and states on severe river water conflicts. India is no exception. This issue occupies centre stage in recent interstate and centre state conflicting relations be it the dispute over Cauvery river water between Karnataka state and Tamil Nadu state or dispute over Ravi-Beas river water among Haryana, Punjab and Delhi states.
Entry 17 in the state list, entry 56 in the union list and article 262 are federal mechanism provided by the constitution over the issue. Unfortunately, these provisions are contradictory and opaque. For example, first provision makes it a state subject but qualified by entry 56 in the list. It states " Regulation and development of interstate rivers and river valleys to the extent to such regulation and development under the control of union is declared by parliament by law to be expedient by public interest." Article 262 establishes supremacy of Parliament over Supreme Court on the matter. Although Parliament has hardly legislated on entry 56 and states have dominated the allocation of river water. These theoretical balancing mechanisms provide space for collusion among states in reality. After 1992, political and economic ecology of the nation have changed drastically compounding the problem. Indian federalism has moved from the doctrine of cooperation to the doctrine of competition politically as well. In such political milieu incorporating the doctrine of harmony in federal water dispute requires new approach and strategy.
This paper discusses constitutional/ statutory mechanisms, policy & institutions and recent challenges over the issue.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines conflicts over water allocation in South Asia as enmeshed with asymmetrical relations among situated agents, uneven geographies and imbricated materialities. An attention to justice is inextricable to systems-level solutions.
Paper long abstract:
Natural resource distribution in the contemporary era is increasingly performed in a discourse of security and risk. Water management, though never an apolitical issue, has become increasingly contentious in many areas where decisions about water governance and management have power over both lifestyles and lives. This paper examines conflicts over water allocation as enmeshed with asymmetrical relations among situated agents, uneven geographies and imbricated materialities. Specifically, it examines the multi-scalar inequities of water systems in South Asia with a focus on India and Bangladesh. Eighteen months of ethnographic data demonstrate the relevance of the trans-corporeal, intersectional, interspecies perspectives to the systemic networking of structural, materialist and Anthropocene research. By documenting and theorizing socio-environmental politics of water crisis, this paper examines how an attention to justice is inextricable to systems-level solutions.
Paper short abstract:
Developing water resilience will require goal-directed research, legitimated by affected communities, directed toward providing practical tools, and supporting adaptive management. This requires highly interdisciplinary research teams working in Pasteur's quadrant, blending theory and practice.
Paper long abstract:
Throughout the world, growth of urban populations, increasing per capita wealth, the need for more food production, and climate change will require improved water management. Engineers have historically dominated the realm of water management, often with disastrous results, especially in the Global South; it has become clear that achieving water resilience requires atransdisciplinary approach that includes both biophysical and social knowledge. Yet there are numerous toward this requisite collaboration- different vocabularies, different paradigms, and different approaches for doing research. I suggest several ideas for overcoming this tension. First, our research could be motivated by knowledge gaps identified by affected communities, legitimating research and assuring reception of useful findings. We might also turn away from elitist "recommendations" towards developing practical, readily accessible tools that can be used to solve problems on the ground. And finally, we might learn how to incorporate research findings into adaptive management platforms needed to achieve water resilience. This vision of goal-directed research to achieve water resilience would require highly interdisciplinary teams, working over many years, in close concert with affected communities. In doing so, engineers and social scientists might find harmony working in Pasteur's quadrant, blending theory and practice. Very likely developing knowledge to solve practical problems will likely strengthen, our theoretical frameworks, especially filling gaps in theory between disciplines.