CASCA/IUAES2017 panel: Deltas as Living Landscapes

River deltas as living landscapes: movement, management, and the
critique of a commonplace

Panel Conveners:
Tanya Richardson (Wilfrid Laurier University) trichardson@wlu.ca
Franz Krause (University of Cologne) f.krause@uni-koeln.de

Short Abstract

This panel explores river deltas as living landscapes in order to
probe the ways in which a river end may exist as something other than
a delta, and the implications of (not) doing so.

Long Abstract

Life along rivers and coasts is anything but static. The places
commonly referred to as "deltas" are not only sites of dense movements
of substances, animals, people, technology and expertise. They also
fluctuate among liquid, solid and other in-between states of matter.

Deltas have recently received renewed attention from anthropologists
and other social scientists. Some study deltas because of their
vulnerability due to climate change; others explore the imaginative
potential of their alterity for undoing modern land/water and
nature/culture oppositions, and the often destructive management
practices they enable.

Yet, a tendency remains to assume that the area characterized by
sediment deposits and multiple distributaries at the end of a river IS
essentially a delta, even in accounts that trace different delta
ontologies. The assumption that a river end is necessarily a delta
naturalizes a historically specific hydrological enactment that
emerged in The Netherlands and travelled with Dutch expertise via
colonial and development encounters.

This panel will investigate deltas as living landscapes in order to
probe the ways in which a river end may exist as something other than
a delta, and the implications of (not) doing so. What practices,
processes, infrastructures, and stories compose river ends as living
landscapes that exceed expert hydrological enactments? In what ways
have inhabitants appropriated expert hydrological knowledge or been
displaced by it? How might the existence of river ends as something
other than deltas open up new conversations about social and
ecological justice, movement and fluctuation, and alternative futures
for these more-than-human landscapes?

The deadline for submission is December 19. For more information see:

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/cascaiuaes2017/suite/panels.php5?PanelID=5306