Paper short abstract:

Using a New Materialities approach, this paper offers an example of doing participant observation with water and explores how being in, and with, water provides insights into fieldwork and relationships.

Paper long abstract:

This paper outlines a series of brief fieldwork sessions completed with a Welsh stream and first year students over a period of 6 years. Following anthropological methods, the water in the stream was approached a community of water and the students engaging with the water were tasked with getting to know water by being with it.

By recording students' experiences, choices and conclusions, this paper will illustrate how materially engaging with the water (i.e.: being in the water) allowed insights about being anthropologists immersed in the 'field', and how it supported a more sophisticated understanding of complex ideas concerning subjectivity, relationships and reflexivity - or how events are co-produced through doing anthropological fieldwork.

This informal research shows that being-with (water) profoundly shapes what people think and understand (about water) and supports the value of learning by active creative practices.