Water In Social Imagination

Water in Social Imagination studies meanings of water in cultural and environmental contexts, from medieval Stockholm to post-Soviet Russia. Authors consider both state policy and modern technologies along with creative resistance to the exploitative imagination.

This book addresses the Arctic and the northern regions by exploring cold waters and northern seascapes. It focuses on cultural discourses and artistic representations concerning the human experience and imagination of how the Arctic Ocean has been explored and used. It aims to assess what is specific to the northern waters vis-à-vis other sea and water areas in the world. The contextual background is provided by the fundamental shift from terra-based thinking towards aqua-based thinking, including the histories of the northern waters and the innovative ocean studies of the last decades. This book will be of interest to readers in Arctic studies and Sea and Ocean studies (including those with interests in literature, history, cultural and film studies, anthropology and politics), Environmental History and Cultural studies as well as in Russian studies. The book has been assembled with a view towards upper-level undergraduate and post-graduate students and scholars and will also be appropriate for courses in the fields mentioned above. The book will be of interest to specialists working in and with Arctic environmental issues. There is a broad array of international academic networks, environmental, governance and cultural associations outside academia whose members may also find the book of interest.

Everywhere in the world communities and nations organize themselves in relation to water. We divert water from rivers, lakes, and aquifers to our homes, workplaces, irrigation canals, and hydro-generating stations. We use it for bathing, swimming, recreation, and it functions as a symbol of purity in ritual performances. In order to facilitate and manage our relationship with water, we develop institutions, technologies, and cultural practices entirely devoted to its appropriation and distribution, and through these institutions we construct relations of class, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Relying on first-hand ethnographic research, the contributors to this volume examine the social life of water in diverse settings and explore the impacts of commodification, urbanization, and technology on the availability and quality of water supplies. Each case study speaks to a local set of issues, but the overall perspective is global, with representation from all continents.

Water is a global resource for modern societies - and water was a global resource for pre-modern societies. The many different water systems serving processes of urbanisation and urban life in ancient times and the Middle Ages have hardly been researched until now. The numerous contributions to this volume pose questions such as what the basic cultural significance of water was, the power of water, in the town and for the town, from different points of view. Symbolic, aesthetic, and cult aspects are taken up, as is the role of water in politics, society, and economy, in daily life, but also in processes of urban planning or in urban neighbourhoods. Not least, the dangers of polluted water or of flooding presented a challenge to urban society. The contributions in this volume draw attention to the complex, manifold relations between water and human beings. This collection presents the results of an international conference in Kiel in 2018. It is directed towards both scholars in ancient and mediaeval studies and all those interested in the diversity of water systems in urban space in ancient and mediaeval times.

Transport and mobility history is one of the most exciting areas of historical research at the present. As its scope expands, it entices scholars working in fields as diverse as historical geography, management studies, sociology, industrial archaeology, cultural and literary studies, ethnography, and anthropology, as well as those working in various strands of historical research. Containing contributions exploring transport and mobility history after 1800, this volume of eclectic chapters shows how new subjects are explored, new sources are being encountered, considered and used, and how increasingly diverse and innovative methodological lenses are applied to both new and well-travelled subjects. From canals to Concorde, from freight to passengers, from screen to literature, the contents of this book will therefore not only demonstrate the cutting edge of research, and deliver valuable new insights into the role and position of transport and mobility in history, but it will also evidence the many and varied directions and possibilities that exist for the field’s future development.

Tools for navigating today's hyper-connected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent white water world. Design Unbound presents a new tool set for having agency in the twenty-first century, in what the authors characterize as a white water world—rapidly changing, hyperconnected, and radically contingent. These are the tools of a new kind of practice that is the offspring of complexity science, which gives us a new lens through which to view the world as entangled and emerging, and architecture, which is about designing contexts. In such a practice, design, unbound from its material thingness, is set free to design contexts as complex systems. In a world where causality is systemic, entangled, in flux, and often elusive, we cannot design for absolute outcomes. Instead, we need to design for emergence. Design Unbound not only makes this case through theory but also presents a set of tools to do so. With case studies that range from a new kind of university to organizational, and even societal, transformation, Design Unbound draws from a vast array of domains: architecture, science and technology, philosophy, cinema, music, literature and poetry, even the military. It is presented in five books, bound as two volumes. Different books within the larger system of books will resonate with different reading audiences, from architects to people reconceiving higher education to the public policy or defense and intelligence communities. The authors provide different entry points allowing readers to navigate their own pathways through the system of books.

This book identifies the most effective water policy tools and innovations, and the circumstances that foster their successful implementation by taking a comparative look at a world-leading ‘laboratory’ of water law and governance: Australia. In particular, the book analyses Australia’s 20-year experience implementing a hybrid governance system of markets, hierarchical regulation, and collaborative integrated water planning. Australia is acknowledged as a world leader in water governance reform, and an examination of its relatively mature water law and governance system has great significance for many international academics and jurisdictions. This book synthesises practical lessons and theoretical insights from Australia, as well as recommendations from comparative analysis with countries such as the United States to provide useful guidance for policymakers and scholars seeking to apply water instruments in a wide range of policy contexts. The book also advances our understanding of water and broader environmental governance theory and is a valuable reference for scholars, researchers and students working in law, regulation and governance studies – especially in the field of water and environmental law. Chapter “Lessons from Australian water reforms: Indigenous and environmental values in market-based water regulation” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Describing sacred waters and their associated traditions in over thirty countries and across multiple time periods, this book identifies patterns in panhuman hydrolatry. Supplying life’s most basic daily need, freshwater sources were likely the earliest sacred sites, and the first protected and contested resource. Guarded by taboos, rites and supermundane forces, freshwater sources have also been considered thresholds to otherworlds. Often associated also with venerated stones, trees and healing flora, sacred water sources are sites of biocultural diversity. Addressing themes that will shape future water research, this volume examines cultural perceptions of water’s sacrality that can be employed to foster resilient human–environmental relationships in the growing water crises of the twenty-first century. The work combines perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, classics, folklore, geography, geology, history, literature and religious studies.