Paper short abstract:

The paper understands water as a social-technical ensembles of heterogenous elements. Referring to the water "crisis" this summer it will focus on how people, animals and non-living material objects are differently ordered in relation to changing water levels.

Paper long abstract:

The trinational Upper Rhine region is by definition one that heavily relates to its waters: the Rhine as an infrastructure of transportation, a source of drinking water, a place to swim, a lifeworld of a variety of species and a landscape that is shaped by water that connects mountains and cities. The theoretical anthropological approach that thinks a region "through water" (see Strang and Krause in several publications) draws the attention to social-technical ensembles of heterogenous elements which are held together by or with water of different ontologies: water as a physical fluid, virtual water as subject of political or economic activities of regulation or competition, be it water on paper, digitized waters or others. Inspired by Astrid Overborbeck Andersen's "Mapping Urban Waters" (2016) my paper will focus on scarcity and/or abundance of water as self-evident or problematic in relation to topographic and topological mapping practices. Referring to the "crisis" of Rhine water this summer I will ask how people, animals and non-living material objects are differently ordered in relation to changing water levels.