Languages of Water – Dialogue

The text is an experimental sketch based on a dialogue between an ecohydrologist and an anthropologist of culture. The authors will subject a critical, interdisciplinary reflection to various water languages used colloquially or in selected professional discourses. They will ask themselves what water is in different contexts, how it is spoken of, how it is thought of, how it is treated and what role water related languages play in times of climate crisis. After all, it is reasonable to ask whether water is a resource, chemical compound, life, service provider, stakeholder, law, or sewage. Based on examples in contemporary discussion on water and the associated blue-green infrastructure the authors distinguish several trends in different ways of talking about water: economic, medical, defensive, scientific and communitarian. They will reflect on the mechanisms comparable to colonial ones that determine the domination of some and the infantilization or cancelation of others, especially the communitarian ones. This dialogue will reveal an “intercellular” permeability of water definitions and how easily water can assume some meaning to escape it and create a series of new ones.

The text is an experimental sketch based on a dialogue between an ecohydrologist and an anthropologist of culture. The authors will subject a critical, interdisciplinary reflection to various water languages used colloquially or in selected professional discourses. They will ask themselves what water is in different contexts, how it is spoken of, how it is thought of, how it is treated and what role water related languages play in times of climate crisis. After all, it is reasonable to ask whether water is a resource, chemical compound, life, service provider, stakeholder, law, or sewage. Based on examples in contemporary discussion on water and the associated blue-green infrastructure the authors distinguish several trends in different ways of talking about water: economic, medical, defensive, scientific and communitarian. They will reflect on the mechanisms comparable to colonial ones that determine the domination of some and the infantilization or cancelation of others, especially the communitarian ones. This dialogue will reveal an “intercellular” permeability of water definitions and how easily water can assume some meaning to escape it and create a series of new ones.