Presentation short abstract

Water museums are emerging but understudied in their political embeddedness and relevance. We analyze four European cases regarding the stories of water told and their educational aims. Our findings stress the importance of political imagination in water education for just socio-ecological futures.

Presentation long abstract

Museums dedicated to water are a relatively recent phenomenon, yet they play a pivotal role in environmental education and have been under-studied in their political relevance; the aim of this paper is to address this gap. Bridging museum education studies with environmental politics, we understand the museum as a power-imbued institution of knowledge, actively shaping socio-ecological relations in their current state and their future(s).

Empirically, through ethnographic visits and qualitative content analysis, we analyze four European water museums (Turin, Paris, Porto, Lisbon) in their content and the interactive educational tools employed. We pay particular attention to what stories of water are being told, what meaning of water they convey and the educational aims of the interactive tools including their ethical and political implications. Understanding ourselves as facilitators of knowledge, we also aim to develop an educational tool with a story-telling approach striving to mobilize political imagination that derives from, and simultaneously feeds, our analysis. Our commitment is to emancipatory education that considers the politics of water and contributes to social and ecological justices.

The findings underline the importance of considering politics within water education, contributing to the understanding of education as entrenched in political and economic structures nevertheless with the potential to promote their transformation towards plural and just socio-ecological futures.