Hydrohumanities: Water Discourse and Environmental Futures

by Kim De Wolff (Editor), Rina C. Faletti (Editor), Ignacio López-Calvo (Editor)

Overview

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.

Discourse about water and power in the modern era have largely focused on human power over water: who gets to own and control a limited resource that has incredible economic potential. As a result, discussion of water, even in the humanities, has traditionally focused on fresh water for human use. Today, climate extremes from drought to flooding are forcing humanities scholars to reimagine water discourse.

This volume exemplifies how interdisciplinary cultural approaches can transform water conversations. The manuscript is organized into three emergent themes in water studies: agency of water, fluid identities, and cultural currencies. The first section deals with the properties of water and the ways in which water challenges human plans for control. The second section explores how water (or lack of it) shapes human collective and individual identities. The third engages notions of value and circulation to think about how water has been managed and employed for local, national, and international gains. Contributions come from preeminent as well as emerging voices across humanities fields including history, art history, philosophy, and science and technology studies. Part of a bigger goal for shaping the environmental humanities, the book broadens the concept of water to include not just water in oceans and rivers but also in pipes, ice floes, marshes, bottles, dams, and more. Each piece shows how humanities scholarship has world-changing potential to achieve more just water futures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520380455
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	12/21/2021
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Kim De Wolff is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas.

Rina C. Faletti is an exhibition curator and researcher in the Global Arts Studies Program at the University of California, Merced. 

Ignacio López-Calvo is UC Merced Presidential Endowed Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Latin American Literature.

Table of Contents

Lists of Figures and Maps ix

Preface Ruth Moslem xi

Introduction: Hydrohumanities Kim De Wolff Rina C. Faletti 1

Part I Agency of Water 19

1 The Agency of Water and the Canal du Midi Chandra Mukerji 23

2 Winnipeg's Aspirational Port and the Future of Arctic Shipping (The Geo-Cultural Version) Stephanie C. Kane 42

3 Radical Water Irene J. Klaver 64

Part II Fluid Identities 91

4 Water, Extractivism, Biopolitics, and Latin American Indigeneity in Arguedas's Los ríos profundos and Potdevin's Palabrero Ignacio López-Calvo Hugo Alberto López Chavolla 95

5 Water as the Medium of Measurement: Mapping Global Oceans in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Penelope K. Hardy 118

6 Aquapelagic Malolos: Island-Water Imaginaries in Coastal Bulacan, Philippines Kale Banttgue Fajardo 141

Part III Cultural Currencies 161

7 The Invisible Sinking Surface; Hydrogeology, Fieldwork, and Photography in California Bina C. Faletti 165

8 Irrigated Gardens of the Indus River Basin: Toward a Cultural Model for Water Resource Management James L. Wescoat Jr. Abubakr Muhammed 190

9 Leadership in Principle: Uniting Nations to Recognize the Cultural Value of Water Veronica Strang 215

Acknowledgments 243

Contributor Bios 245

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

"A wonderful, pioneering, and thought-provoking book for the new research field of hydrohumanities. Hydrohumanities will help people understand our past better and offer many insightful suggestions to current and future aquatic problems humans may likely encounter."

H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews