Project Details
Projekt
Volatile waters and the hydrosocial anthropocene: a comparative study of life in major river deltas
Applicant
Franz Krause, Ph.D.
Subject Area
Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
Human Geography
Human Geography
Term
from 2016 to 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 276392588
How do global crises – in water, economies and climate – manifest in people's everyday lives? How do delta inhabitants negotiate the ongoing and accelerating volatility of water? And what are the similarities and differences in the predicaments of different major deltas around the world? Based on ethnographic field research, the project has been developing an empirically rich account of the lives of current inhabitants of four socioeconomically and geographically different river deltas. With studies in the Mackenzie Delta in Canada, the Ayeyarwady Delta in Myanmar, the Parnaíba Delta in Brazil and the Sine-Saloum Delta in Senegal, it has been documenting a wide variety of hydrosocial crises and situated ways of dealing with them.In its final year, the project will elaborate these insights into three directions: first, it will develop the project’s comparative dimension by more explicitly drawing some common conclusions out of the four studies. One comparative publication will discuss relative perception of volatility, illustrating how some processes, which outside observers understand as dramatically volatile, are rather unspectacular dynamics of everyday life of many river delta inhabitants. Other processes, in contrast, which outside observers may take for granted, can be experienced by delta inhabitants as much more disruptive. Second, the project will intensify its links with the earth-systems science discussions that dominate public and academic discourses on life in river deltas. Through attending conferences and contributing an article to a journal in the mainstream field of delta studies, project staff will highlight some of the contributions that anthropological studies bring to the current discussions of delta crises. They will provide concrete examples of relevant aspects of people’s lives that are unlikely to be picked up by the more standard, remote sensing and survey based approaches. Rather than emphasizing how much more complicated real life is compared to the usual maps and models, this intervention will provide a non-technical argument for a disciplinarily more balanced approach to understanding life in river deltas.Finally, the project will produce an ethno-graphic novel with key research results, and discuss the outcome with research participants in the four deltas. This not only represents a research output that is meaningful to research participants who have contributed to the project’s success by sharing their time and expertise. It is also a means to provoke reactions and discuss the conclusions the project has drawn from the research. Research participants will have the opportunity to discuss, criticise and refine our findings, and to offer their own interpretations of the delta ethnographies. Through the graphic novel, they will be able to discuss not only our conclusions regarding their particular situation, but also the project findings from the respective other three deltas.
DFG Programme
Independent Junior Research Groups
International Connection
Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA
