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Paper short abstract

The paper talks of a fen that emerged in the Late Pleistocene due to groundwater springs. By asking how things hold together, it shows the balance equation and the groundwater level as just one of the more-than-human practices that coordinate to materialise as something we can still call a fen.

Paper long abstract

The paper presents a case study of a peat fen and its surrounding sandy-soil pine forest, a rare relic of the vast wetlands of Záhorská Lowland (Slovakia) thereby a nature reserve since 1964. These wetlands emerged due to complex Neogene tectonic and postglacial geomorphological development, which caused groundwater springs to rise to the surface in the aeolian interdune slacks.

The expansion of modernist interest in transforming the (ground)water regime and peat extraction already began in the 18th century, and still intensified in the 2nd half of the 1950s. The vast drainage projects essentially destroyed the almost entire area’s hydrological complex.

The accurate groundwater levels are seen as a crucial condition for the fen to remain, i.e. to stay aquatic instead of a terrestrial. Nevertheless, this paper juxtaposes the principle of mass conservation in the hydrological cycle of a peat fen with other than hydrological methods of “measuring” and “speculating” on its existence. By ethnographically tracing the more-than-human practices and temporalities that are brought into coordination and materialise as a historically consequential “assemblage” (Gan&Tsing 2018), it shows the balance equation to be just one practice that makes the fen happen. Moreover, by asking how things still “hold together” at this magical interface rather than reproducing the dominant Anthropocene metanarrative of irreversibilities, I am offering a story where plants, animals, natural gas, drainage tubes, pollen seeds, Lidar system, illegal housing and the proper (ground)water take part on the modelling the patch (Tsing 2024) instead of humans being the only relevant actors.