Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice

Rutgerd Boelens; Arturo Escobar; Karen Bakker; Lena Hommes; Erik Swyngedouw; Barbara Hogenboom; Edward H Huijbens; Sue Jackson; Jeroen Vos; Leila M Harris; K J Joy; Fabio de Castro; Bibiana Duarte-Abadía; Daniele Tubino de Souza; Heila Lotz-Sisitka; Nuria Hernández-Mora; Joan Martínez-Alier; Denisse Roca-Servat; Tom Perreault; Carles Sanchis-Ibor; Diana Suhardiman; Astrid Ulloa; Arjen Wals; Jaime Hoogesteger; Juan Pablo Hidalgo-Bastidas; Tatiana Roa-Avendaño; Gert Jan Veldwisch; Phil Woodhouse; Karl M Wantzen

doi:10.1080/03066150.2022.2120810

Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice

J Peasant Stud. 2022 Nov 15;50(3):1125-1156. doi: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2120810. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Rutgerd Boelens¹, Arturo Escobar², Karen Bakker³, Lena Hommes⁴, Erik Swyngedouw⁵, Barbara Hogenboom⁶, Edward H Huijbens⁷, Sue Jackson⁸, Jeroen Vos⁴, Leila M Harris⁹, K J Joy¹⁰, Fabio de Castro⁶, Bibiana Duarte-Abadía⁴, Daniele Tubino de Souza⁴, Heila Lotz-Sisitka¹¹, Nuria Hernández-Mora¹², Joan Martínez-Alier¹³, Denisse Roca-Servat¹⁴, Tom Perreault¹⁵, Carles Sanchis-Ibor¹⁶, Diana Suhardiman¹⁷, Astrid Ulloa¹⁸, Arjen Wals¹⁹, Jaime Hoogesteger⁴, Juan Pablo Hidalgo-Bastidas⁴, Tatiana Roa-Avendaño²⁰, Gert Jan Veldwisch⁴, Phil Woodhouse²¹, Karl M Wantzen²²

Affiliations

¹ Department Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, and CEDLA, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
² Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
³ Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Geography, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
⁶ CEDLA, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
⁷ Cultural Geography Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands.
⁸ Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
⁹ Institute for Resources Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
¹⁰ SOPPECOM Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management, Pune, India.
¹¹ Department of Transformative Social Learning and Sustainability, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
¹² New Water Culture Foundation, Zaragoza, Spain.
¹³ ICTA, Department of Economics, Autonomous University Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁴ School of Social Sciences, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín, Medellín, Colombia.
¹⁵ Department of Geography, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA.
¹⁶ Valencian Centre for Irrigation Studies, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain.
¹⁷ Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, Netherlands.
¹⁸ Department of Geography, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
¹⁹ Education and Learning Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands and Norwegian Life Sciences University, Ås, Norway.
²⁰ Censat Agua Viva, Bogotá, Colombia & CEDLA, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
²¹ Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
²² UNESCO Chair River Culture, CNRS UMR CITERES, Universities of Tours and of Strasbourg, France.

Abstract

Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering 'unruly waters and humans' have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water justice movements (NWJMs) proliferate: rooted, disruptive, transdisciplinary, multi-scalar coalitions that deploy alternative river-society ontologies, bridge South-North divides, and translate river-enlivening practices from local to global and vice-versa. This paper's framework conceptualizes 'riverhood' to engage with NWJMs and river commoning initiatives. We suggest four interrelated ontologies, situating river socionatures as arenas of material, social and symbolic co-production: 'river-as-ecosociety', 'river-as-territory', 'river-as-subject', and 'river-as-movement'.

Keywords: Environmental justice; disruptive co-production; hydrosocial territories; ontological complexity; river commoning; translocal movements.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the ERC European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [Riverhood, Grant Number 101002921]; see also www.movingrivers.org.