Paper short abstract:

If the global water crisis is a governance crisis, I argue that such governance crisis is also a crisis of narratives and imagination and I discuss how storytelling through different media – video, podcast, photography – can help to imagine and prefigure new water communities in the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract:

We are often told that the global water crisis is a governance crisis. I argue that such governance crisis is also a crisis of narratives and imagination: water professionals often lack the capacity to elaborate and appreciate alternative ways of understanding and managing water. The idea of the Anthropocene expresses the need and the urgency for such capacity of imagination and prefiguration.

Reflecting on an action research with journalists and scientists in the Nile basin, and on a conversation between artists and researchers around the idea of water representations, I will discuss how storytelling through different media – video, podcast, photography – can be mobilized to imagine and prefigure new - and more than human - water communities. I will also share the experience of using storytelling and those media in the classroom, as a contribution towards a pedagogy for water education fit for the Anthropocene.