Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Anthropology and Advocacy -- Anthropology and Aid -- Anthropology and development -- Anthropology and the Environment -- Anthropology and Governance -- Anthropology, Business and Industry -- Anthropology and Health -- Anthropology and Identity -- Anthropology and the Arts -- Conclusion.

Introduction : water garden -- A process of engagement -- Governing water -- Indigenous fluidscapes -- Farming water -- Manufacturing water -- Recreating water -- Saving water -- Conclusion : gardening the world

The Stour Valley -- Losing water -- Senses and sensibilities -- Thinking water -- Holy water -- Secular hydrolatry -- The hydrodynamics of order -- Private life -- Governing water -- Cultivating water -- Back to nature -- Watering the house and garden -- Water pressure.

There are diverse historical trajectories in human societies' relationships with the nonhuman world. While many small place-based groups have tried to retain egalitarian partnerships with other species and ecosystems, larger societies have made major transitions. In religious terms, they have moved from worshipping female, male or androgynous non-human deities, to valorising pantheons of deities that, over time, became semi-human and then human in form. Reflecting Durkheimian changes in social and political arrangements, movements towards patriarchy led to declining importance in female deities, and the eventual primacy of single male Gods. With these changes came dualistic beliefs separating Culture from Nature, gendering these as male and female, and asserting male dominion over both Nature and women. These beliefs supported activities that have led to the current environmental crisis: unrestrained growth; hegemonic expansion; colonialism, and unsustainable exploitation of the non-human world. These are essentially issues of inequality: between genders, between human groups, and between human societies and other living kinds. This paper draws on a series of ethnographic research projects (since 1992) exploring humanenvironmental relationships, primarily in Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, and on a larger comparative study, over many years, of a range of ethnographic, archaeological, theological, and historical material from around the world. It considers contemporary debates challenging NatureCulture dualism and promoting 'rights for Nature' or—rejecting anthropocentricity to recognize an indivisible world—for the non-human communities with whom we co-inhabit ecosystems. Proposing new ways to configure ethical debates, it suggests that non-human rights are, like women's rights, fundamentally concerned with power relations, social status, and access to material resources, to the extent that the achievement of 'pan-species democracy' and greater equality between living kinds goes hand-in-hand with social, political and religious equality between genders.

This epilogue provides a 'last word' to this rich collection of papers engaging in lively dialogue with Wittfogel's ghost. It suggests that although his writing has been criticised as deterministic and generalising, with hindsight, Wittfogel is best appreciated as a scholar thinking within a particular historical and intellectual context. Part of the abiding appeal of his perspective comes from the clear and strong lines it draws connecting water, infrastructure and power.

Ya han pasado sesenta años desde que Karl Wittfogel destacara una relación clave entre el poder político y la propiedad y el control del agua. Estudios posteriores han sugerido, en un sentido acorde, que la exclusión de la propiedad de recursos esenciales representa una forma profunda de exclusión —una pérdida de participación democrática en la dirección societaria—. Varios campos de desarrollo teórico han clarificado estos temas. Algunos antropólogos han explorado la relación recursiva entre arreglos políticos y sistemas de creencia cosmológicos. Las definiciones estrechas de propiedad han sido cuestionadas al tomarse en consideración formas más diversas de propiedad y control de los recursos. Los análisis de la cultura material han mostrado cómo esta amplía la agencia humana, además de tener capacidades de agencia en sí misma; y exploraciones sobre infraestructuras han destacado su papel en la constitución de relaciones sociotécnicas y políticas. Tales aproximaciones son fácilmente aplicables al agua y a la cultura material a través de la cual es controlada y usada. A partir de una investigación histórica y etnográfica sobre el agua en Australia y el Reino Unido, este artículo traza las relaciones cambiantes a lo largo del tiempo entre creencias cosmológicas, infraestructura y arreglos políticos, y sugiere que la actual tendencia hacia la privatización transnacional de la propiedad del agua abre la puerta al surgimiento de nuevos "regímenes despóticos".

Interactions with water are indicative not only of relationships between human groups but also of relationships with other species. In biopolitical economies few things express dominance over other species as clearly as damming and redirecting flows of water to give primacy to human needs. Yet despite growing opposition, dams—especially large ones—are still presented triumphantly, as symbols of successful nationhood and economic development. Building on ethnographic research in Australia, this chapter examines the allure of dams. It suggests that they represent not only a competition for wealth, but also an aspiration for control over life itself and the vitality of "living water."