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- Convenors:
-
Katriina Siivonen
(University of Turku)
Jaana Kouri (Åbo Akademi)
Ullrich Kockel (University of the Highlands and Islands)
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- Formats:
- Workshops
- Stream:
- Environment
- Location:
- KWZ 0.606
- Start time:
- 27 March, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
To settle down in the changing rhythm and time of water defines observations, actions and identities. We focus in the production and use of experience based knowledge in the water environments. The workshop is organized under the WG Place Wisdom targeting an idea for a project and/or publication.
Long Abstract:
In the sea, lake, river or coastal areas a dwelling is connected and build not only to its geographical position but also to human experience of its "waterway" location, which influences to the sense of place. Water itself is unique as an element in the sense that it is both universal and particular.
To settle down in the local, changing rhythm and time of water defines everywhere strongly one's observations, identities and actions, such as practices of place making. Even if impacts of global changes are received locally, cultural knowledge is constituted in local practical activities, rather than being imported into them. In this workshop we are interested in the production and use of the experience based, tacit or local knowledge in the water environments. How this knowledge should be taken into account when planning adaptation policies to environmental and societal changes locally and globally?
The workshop is a part of the activities of SIEF Working Group Place Wisdom and one of its working themes: Waterscape. The outcome of the workshop will be jointly defined, and can be a common idea for a project and/or a publication. Most of the workshop time will be used to joint work using participatory methods with a target to find new forms of cooperation among workshop participants (presenters, participants, convenors). We ask for proposals with interesting themes and suggestions for the form of further cooperation. All presentations selected to the workshop have 5-10 minutes time for their performance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper makes the case for challenging water policy normativity through diary-based research on urban water practices in Lusaka, Zambia.
Paper long abstract:
What factors converge to create water traditions in an urban and peri-urban waterscape like Lusaka? This paper makes the case that water policy for urban Africa is rooted in a myth that privileges particular epistemologies of water. In this tradition of thinking about water, water scarcity and safety are key motifs framing what we know about urban water in Africa. But, research methods which focus on daily, local water practices invite us to think outside this old story and see it perhaps for what it is: a (global) legend, woven of some truth and some fiction, and not nearly as interesting as people's normal lives. This paper is based on an empirical study in Lusaka, Zambia, where I used water diaries to "make the invisible visible"—a key priority for researching everyday life. The paper speaks to the benefits and strengths of diaries as an empirical approach for researching the waterscape, with implications for more than just water policy in Zambia or Africa: it demonstrates how local knowledge can challenge the normativity of policy-making frameworks everywhere.
Paper short abstract:
Focusing upon my own refrain-like experience of the Chassezac river in France, this paper explores the rhythms and daydreams associated with ritualistic routines of swimming. I argue that our hyper-awareness of connecting with water as we swim alters our sense of dwelling in the world.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will explore rhythms of movement and daydreaming associated with ritualistic routines of swimming. By focusing upon my own water-bound state of 'being elsewhere' (Merleau-Ponty: 1945) I shall argue that our hyper-awareness of connecting with water as we swim alters our sense of dwelling in the world. Every day, for two weeks each year, I swim up and down the same stretch of the Chassezac river in the Ardêche region of France. My paper will therefore offer a rhythmanalysis (Henri LeFebvre) of my refrain like experience of this stretch of river water. As I swim, I find myself meditating on what makes moving through this particular medium, the 'clear green water' (Bachelard) of a French river, different from swimming in the sea. In his 1942 text Water and Dreams, Bachelard reminds us repeatedly of his sensorial familiarity with the rivers and streams of Vallage, and he also insists that reveries associated with fresh water ('the true mythical substance') are, for him, superior to 'the sea-oriented unconscious'. There is thus something about salt water which Bachelard clearly sees as alien to his own embodied sense of dwelling. By contrast, fresh water implicitly engenders a heightened sense of permeability with the environment. A key concern of my paper will therefore be to reflect upon this distinction between river and sea as sites for dreaming, and to consider the kinds of sensory exchanges that happen between body and water when we swim.
Paper short abstract:
We search for cooperation concerning co-creation of hybrid knowledge about the impacts of climate change and environmental changes by combining everyday experiences and scientific knowledge partly in order to be able adapt to the environmental changes and partly to avoid climate change.
Paper long abstract:
Climate change cause potential changes in the seasonal changes and the rhythm of the year in local culture in the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea area, where our focus is especially in the Southwest Finland Archipelago. Our aim is to create hybrid knowledge about the impacts of climate change and changes in seasonal changes by combining knowledge based on everyday experiences and scientific knowledge.
We will combine different ethnographic methods and participatory, partly art based workshops for local experimental knowledge about seasonal changes. We will have expert interviews with scientists in natural sciences concerning impacts of climate change in the Baltic Sea. On the base of these we will create mixed processes where everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge are intertwined and new viewpoints about cultural and environmental changes in relation to seasonal changes and climate change are emerged. These viewpoints will be used both in local culture in Southwest Finland Archipelago and in environmental sciences and cultural research in order to find new solutions for local people to adapt to the changing environment in the Baltic Sea, and to find new solutions to slow down climate change.
We are interested in research cooperation and joint publications concerning development of qualitative methodology for co-creations of cultural changes both in order to avoid climate change and to adapt to the environmental changes caused by it.
Paper short abstract:
If ways of experiencing an environment are inextricably linked to ways of acting in it, foregrounding experiences of a water scarce environment towards contesting its political construction can provide nuanced understanding of how local knowledge and national policies mutually inform one another.
Paper long abstract:
A short graphic animation developed from a broader ethnographic study on resilience to water scarcity in environments of rapid change conducted with 23 households and 8 institutional stakeholders in an informal settlement in Lima, Peru, highlights the links between perceptions and experiences of water scarcity and its political construction.
Through a number of interweaving short stories developed around practices of dwelling, the animation examines discrepancies in perceptions of, and associated actions to adjust to protracted and unpredictably fluctuating water scarcity. Highlighting the vital and non-substitutable nature of water and residents' multiple time and resource-consuming daily practices to acquire this, the animation draws out the tensions arising between the production, use of, and constant adjustment to experience-based, tacit knowledge about water scarcity, and its concurrent political construction.
The animation seeks to illustrate how local practices of place making have the potential to inform national and global policies aimed at successful adaptation to protracted water scarcity, and how in turn local practices are enabled (or indeed hindered) by such policies. It offers critiques of placing the onus for adaptation on communities by showcasing the limitations to individual and community agency in adjusting to, and contesting, politically constructed water scarcity.
This short animation presents a number of discussion points around the link between the experience and political construction of water (scarce) environments; and the ethnographic, graphic and visual means for examining and communicating practices of place making and their potential for understanding this link.