How Water Makes Us Human: Engagements With the Materiality of Water

Description

This book is about how water becomes people – or, put another way, how people and water flow together and shape each other. While the focus of the book is on the relationships held between water and people, it also has a broader message about human relationships with the environment generally – a message that illustrates not only that people are existentially entangled with the material world, but that the materials of the world shape, determine and enable humans to be ‘humans’ in the ways that they are. Offering a selection of anthropological examples from Kenya, Wales and Spain to illustrate how water’s materiality coproductively generates the way people are able to engage with water, this book uses cross-disciplinary perspectives to provide and promote a new analytic – one that encourages ethical, holistic and sustainable relationships with the world around us. This approach challenges representations that ignore, sidestep or are blind to the fleshy materiality of being human, and aims to encourage a re-imagining of the world that acknowledges humanity as intrinsically active-with and part of the fabric of the collection of materials we call planet Earth. Review “Luci Attala shows how water has shaped the physical, mythic, and political lives of three contrasting societies. Instead of seeing water as a resource, she asks what it makes of us. This is essential reading, a new way of understanding the surprising power of what is in the world to shape us.” (Alan Ereira, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, author of The Heart of the World) “It is important for us to discover new ways of experiencing and speaking of our relationships with Nature. This book is a useful and welcome first step.” (David Cadman, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, editor of Speeches and Articles of The Prince of Wales) About the Author Luci Attala is a senior lecturer in anthropology at UWTSD, Senior Fellow HEA, Green Gown Award winner for her work on sustainability, and recipient of UN Gold Star Award for work in Kenya. Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Preface Part One 1: Introduction The direction and purpose: New Materialities Materiality/Material culture/New Materialities Why water? People: bodies and water Agency 2: Water Behaviours: A Brief Ethnography of Water What is water? First light, then water Being liquid: physics, classifications, breaking the law and transformation How can one know water? Liquid behaviours The importance of movement: molecular sociology Solvents and solutions But how does water move? Circles, cycles and snakes The earth and the air Water: the shape of life, and when water is human 3: Resource or Source?: How to Approach Water in the Time of Climate Change Part Two 4: Introduction 5: The Giriama in Kenya: Living with Drought Water practices: rain, roofs, rivers and water basins Head carrying: water shaping gendered bodies Giriama conceptions of water Fu ha mwenga: fluidity and identity Watery identities Identity solutions: blending place, power and water MaKaya: home from home Giriama waters and authenticity: understanding the materiality of water 6: Lanjaron, Spain Slow water: glaciers, ice and snow The Moorish influence: hydrologers Invisible waters Not all waters are equal Mineral water: healing and destruction Change: festivities and water The ritual 7: Welsh Water: The Resourcefulness of Water Establishing Welsh water: then and now The language of water Discourses on deluge Water relationships, powers and control Memories of floods and flooding Water and memory: ‘Remember Tryweryn' Reservoirs Yma o hyd (Still here) 8: Concluding Remarks References Index Back Cover