Short abstract:

Ethnographic contributions to sustainability research, in this case sustainable groundwater management, can go beyond providing local know-how. Instead, they can study and shape transdisciplinary processes, provide co-used ethnographic data and interdisciplinarily challenge natural sciences.

Long abstract:

As part of the junior research group “regulate – regulation of groundwater in telecoupled social-ecological systems” ethnographic research was set out to contribute by studying local formal and informal institutions of groundwater use ethnographically. Over time, the roles and research lines of ethnography became part of interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary stakeholder processes addressing sustainable groundwater management. In this contribution, the authors reflect on and discuss the multifaceted ethnographic roles as they unfolded differently in these processes. Ethnographic research lines included: First, ethnographic fieldwork with water utility companies and other relevant organizations and authorities of the water sector in Germany, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, tracing complexities of infrastructuring sustainable groundwater management. Second, ethnographic contributions to interdisciplinary research with physical geography and hydrology, ranging from co-using ethnographic data to generative conceptual tensions. Third, ethnographic contributions to transdisciplinary stakeholder workshop series for developing measures for sustainable groundwater management. These included conceptualizations of workshops from an STS-inspired perspective and formulating these workshops as a fieldwork site for participant observation. Additionally, some of the authors also contributed to collaboratively writing “guiding principles for sustainable groundwater management” with participating stakeholders for the county level and its political representatives. Moreover, we will illustrate how these research dynamics and ethnographic implications contribute to futuring visions for sustainable groundwater management.

This paper contextualizes these ethnographic research lines within the broader discussions on sustainability transformations by examining the ethnographic contributions as methodological experimentation in collaborations and concomitant potentials to generate co-laborative spaces that emerge in research on/for sustainable groundwater management.