Water, Scale and Materiality
Anthropological Perspectives on Hydrosocial Relations
1st Edition
Published on 1. May 2026
208 pages
978-1-83695-486-6 (ISBN)
Description
Anthropology has an important role in articulating people's engagements with water at different spatial and temporal scales, and in showing how local relationships with waterways and marine areas translate into larger anthropogenic impacts on regional and global ecosystems. This volume explores diverse relationships with waterbodies, and considers how these are expressed in art, material culture and infrastructures. Focusing on the multiple and overlapping scales at which people relate to water in contexts including wave science, Indigenous cosmology, extractive industries and environmental activism, it suggests that efforts to achieve more sustainable and equitable engagements with water must also be multi-scalar.
Reviews / Votes
"An ambitious and promising contribution to the theoretical and methodological development of the anthropology of water." * Ina Dietzsch, Institut fuer Empirische KulturwissenschaftMore details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Reflowable
Illustrations
Bibliography; Index; 41 Illustrations
File size
23,42 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-83695-486-6 (9781836954866)
DOI
10.3167/9781836954859
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Veronica Strang is a Professor of Anthropology and Executive Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University. An environmental anthropologist, she has written extensively on water, land and resource issues in Australia and the UK, and is the author of Uncommon Ground: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Values (Berg 1997), and The Meaning of Water (Berg 2004). She also co-edited, with Mark Busse, the ASA Monograph, Ownership and Appropriation.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Tracing Scales in Hydrosocial Relations
Veronica Strang and Franz Krause
Chapter 1. Waves, In Silico: Scale, Ocean Memory and Computer Memory in a Digital Model of Worldwide Waves
Stefan Helmreich
Chapter 2. Flux and Flows in the Waters of Yolngu Country, Northeast Arnhem Land: Reflections on Scale
Frances Morphy
Chapter 3. From Rivulet to Flood: African Water Beings on Minor and Major Scales
Veronica Strang
Chapter 4. Unsettling Ice: Building Roads and Betting on Break-Up in the Mackenzie Delta
Franz Krause
Chapter 5. The Arts of Streaming Central Asian River Life
Jeanne Feaux de la Croix
Chapter 6. From Local to Virtual Water: The Industrialization of Underground Water During the Nitrate Mining Boom in the Tarapaca Region, Atacama Desert (1810-1930)
Manuel Mendez
Conclusion: Ways of Scaling Water
Franz Krause and Veronica Strang
Afterword: Reflections on Scale Inside and Outside Anthropology
Howard Morphy
Index
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Tracing Scales in Hydrosocial Relations
Veronica Strang and Franz Krause
Chapter 1. Waves, In Silico: Scale, Ocean Memory and Computer Memory in a Digital Model of Worldwide Waves
Stefan Helmreich
Chapter 2. Flux and Flows in the Waters of Yolngu Country, Northeast Arnhem Land: Reflections on Scale
Frances Morphy
Chapter 3. From Rivulet to Flood: African Water Beings on Minor and Major Scales
Veronica Strang
Chapter 4. Unsettling Ice: Building Roads and Betting on Break-Up in the Mackenzie Delta
Franz Krause
Chapter 5. The Arts of Streaming Central Asian River Life
Jeanne Feaux de la Croix
Chapter 6. From Local to Virtual Water: The Industrialization of Underground Water During the Nitrate Mining Boom in the Tarapaca Region, Atacama Desert (1810-1930)
Manuel Mendez
Conclusion: Ways of Scaling Water
Franz Krause and Veronica Strang
Afterword: Reflections on Scale Inside and Outside Anthropology
Howard Morphy
Index
