Paper Short Abstract:

This talk explores the management of Odra River in times of more frequent floods caused by approaching climate disaster. We argue that humans’ relationships with environment are based on dichotomy and separation from nature, which leads to attempts of controlling Odra, rather than co-existing with it. The change in perceiving and managing Odra can only be achieved by acknowledging the fact that more-than-humans co-create the river, and broader environment. This presentation is based on research conducted in Wrocław, Poland.

Paper Abstract:

In recent years we are experiencing a spike in frequency of climate disasters. The main cause of this is a long tradition of attempting to live in separation from the environment and believing that we as humans are independent from it. In our research which we are conducting in Wrocław, Poland we pay attention to the way in which city dwellers perceive the Odra River – how they think about it and behave towards it, taking into account the flood from 1997 and flood threat from 2024. It is also important for us to understand how flood protection systems and flood risk management of Odra River work, how they've been changing over the years, and how they are connected with the way in which we think about river, and broader environment.

Following Veronica Strang (2021: 407) we argue that imposing more material control over water flows does not lead to sustainable solutions. One of aims of our research is to present world as shimmering, which means composed of pulsating relations (Rose 2017). We believe that taking into account more-than-humans and acknowledging the presence and entanglements of various species with Odra is essential to stop thinking about river as just a resource.

In our talk we will discuss the way in which our interlocutors perceive the river, how government manages it and why it is important to think about Odra in terms of more-than-human sociality (Tsing 2013).