More-than-water, more-than-human: a transdisciplinary sociology of water conflict in central Iran
Date
2017
Authors
Nabavi, Ehsan
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Abstract
Water conflict situations represent an intense meeting point of
society and nature, particularly in terms of increasing water
demand and diminishing resources. However, less tangible
interactions also occur in these situations: between hydraulic
infrastructure, governments, science and communities. Such
connections are often left unidentified because of the assumption
of the division between culture and nature and between the human
and the nonhuman as separate categories.
This thesis argues the water conflicts that our current world
seeks to govern—often through technical, apolitical, acultural
approaches—are ‘hybridized’ in nature. They are immersed in
myriad of nested networks of heterogeneous elements (e.g. humans,
technologies, scientific evidence, laws, ideas, and biophysical
processes), interacting together and connecting the past,
present, and future. Specifically, what is understood in
societies as ‘water conflict’ is the outcome of dynamic
interactions that continuously form and reform the conflict
situation, and determine the social and political orders
surrounding it.
The thesis argues that we can and should go beyond singular
disciplinary viewpoints to unpack this ‘water conflict
assemblage’. To this end, it proposes a transdisciplinary frame
of analysis, called Actor-Network-Systems (ANSs). The thesis
offers a new way to reconceptualise water conflict, including the
well-established notion of ‘hydrohegemony’, and
‘hydropolitics’ more generally.
The theoretical shift is brought about in two ways: first, by
revisiting the meaning and implication of the ‘political’,
and the ‘social’ in water research through considering the
role of nonhumans; second, by establishing the connection between
‘conflict’ and ‘the future’ and the ways in which it
affects the ‘sustainability’ discourse circulated in
society.
Using the example of the Zayandeh-Rood water conflict in Iran,
the study illustrates how different concepts developed in this
thesis encourage a higher level of understanding, deeper
reflection, and renewed purpose to the study of water conflict.
To put the provided insights into practice, the thesis also
developed and trialled a form of participatory drama, called
Pathways Theatre, as an innovative initiative to influence a
conflict situation, so as to transform it into a more sustainable
configuration. The Zayandeh-Rood case demonstrates the value and
policy-relevance of the approach to real-world conflict
transformation.
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Keywords
water conflict, conflict transformation, Actor-Network, assemblage, Zayandeh-Rood river, Iran
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