Paper short abstract:

Establishing and practicing a More-Than-Human Response-Ability in order to think with rivers and its companion species is the key to sustaining livable futures. The current conflicts in the Omo Valley showcase the main challenges and possible solutions to this task.

Paper long abstract:

"Water is always more than itself" (Ballestero 2019). Consequently, the future of healthy interspecies relations among rivers depends heavily on overcoming the singularity of water that is deeply implemented in capitalist and authoritarian state structures. Going beyond the narrow view of water as a natural resource by recognizing and implementing its sociality transcends the so called "modern water" (Linton 2014) ontology and contributes to restoring and strengthening the mutual relationship between the "companion species" (Haraway 2016) of a specific watershed. Instead of focusing on measurable units of water that can easily be embedded in market mechanisms in order to put rivers to work in the name of progress and growth the aim is to establish a way of being- and thinking-with rivers that entails a mutual attention and care among its human, non-human, and more-than-human companion species.

The hydrosocial network of the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia is shaped by these two notions of relating to water. On the one hand the Omo valley is experiencing an ever-expanding industrialization in form of state-initiated infrastructure projects such as a cascade of dams for electricity generation and irrigation-based plantation agriculture. On the other hand (agro-)pastoral groups practice cattle herding, fishing, as well as flood-retreat and rainfed agriculture that are deeply bound to the flow of the Omo and therefore rely on the health of the river and its companion species. Designing livable futures in which practices of both water ontologies cooperatively intertwine is the urgent task at hand.